File storage backend for Rails

Question

Hello,

I have a Rails application that I want to add file upload to, so that the users have access to a "resources" section where they can upload and share (although not publicly) any type of file. I know I could build a solution using paperclip and S3 for example, but to try and avoid the admin overhead of all that I'm looking at API interfaces to drop.io and box.net. Does anyone have any experience of these? I've got a basic demo working rather well to drop.io, but I was just wondering if anyone had any better ideas or experiences.

Many thanks D

Answer 1

I use attachment_fu with S3 backend. For User Interface goodness, I use YUI's file uploader.

Some of the files are uploaded with world read access, others with no public read access. I use Attachement_fu to create self-signed urls to enable clients to access the private S3 files.

I did write some small helper routines for the S3 library for re-connecting after a timeout, handling various errors that the S3 library can raise, etc.

Building your own library for drop.io and/or box.net

Your idea of using the API for a commercial service is interesting but I haven't run into any problems with the above config. And the price for direct S3 access is very low.

If you do decide to go this route, you may want to open source your code. You'd benefit by getting testing, ideas, and possible code contributions from the community.

Note that if you have a lot of uploads, you can end up with a performance issue if the uploads are synchronous with the Rails thread--the rails process is busy uploading and can't do anything else until the upload is done.

HTH,

Larry