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Stop c5 from uploading images in Subfolders

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Hello,

i´m working with c5 with a few years now, and i know that is uploads every image in a growing series of subfolders.
Which now is big problem, because by doing this it builds a lot of "files" or "folders". And oddly my client´s website is hosted by a provider, which gives you unlimited webspace - but in the same way limits the number of files you can upload.

By now, i have exceeded this number, and already deleted every file that is not in use.
So my question: Is there a way to stop c5 from putting every uploaded image in a series of subfolders? And just uploading all images in one big folder?

My client´s website has a growing number of image galleries, so i think this would be the easiest way to minimize the number of "files" - and by files here i mean the series of subfolders, that are created by concrete5.

Any ideas on this?

Thanks in advance
Florian
 
exchangecore replied on at Permalink Reply
exchangecore
Well... first off I'll point out that almost never does "Unlimited Storage" really mean unlimited. There's almost always another clause in there that will force you to hit storage limits, in this case inodes. My first bit of advice is to take a long hard look at your hosting contracts and make the best decision based on the system you know you are working with.

Secondly, the reason that there is good reason for files to be split into directories. Operating system's filesystems frequently start to perform very poorly after a certain number of files / folders are accumulated in any one directory, the solution being to split them up and layer them. Additionally, it adds obscurity to the file paths so that someone can't simply go through and download all the files you might have out there without learning these file paths.

Thirdly, you could look at using alternative storage locations. I know there is a marketplace add-on for storing files on Amazon S3 which means these files don't need to be on your web host. Or you could build your own storage location which might store the file data in the database (I wouldn't do this but just saying it's a possibility...) and therefore eliminate the extra files on the filesystem. Or you could

Finally, if you really feel you must circumvent the system it I think you would need to override the service provider that generates these prefixes. I'm not sure how you'd go about getting rid of the files that already have a prefix or retrieving them since you'd be altering the prefix code for existing files (probably have to do some kind of manual programming to pass through all the files)
The service provider that appears to be responsible is:

'helper/concrete/file' => '\Concrete\Core\File\Service\Application'
fsteden replied on at Permalink Reply
Hi exchangecore,
thanks for your quick and explicit answer!

1. Unfortunately the provider is one of the biggest and worst in Germany...and my client doesn´t want to "get in trouble by doubting their services" - as he told me...so this option is off the table.

2. Thanks for the explanation. i´m not an expert when it comes to data security, but of course is makes sense to put files in many subdirectories.
My client uploads picture galleries of events, so there is no need to handle the pictures in that secure way. If somebody decides to download them all - my client wouldn´t mind.

3. Well, i might take a look at the service provider. The S3 Storage is currently not an option, because the plugin only works with c5.7, but i´m still using c5.6.
But it would be good to know if it is possible to build up galleries (i.e with the responsive Gallery Block) out of external storages. I could find any definitive information about that in the S3-Plugin documentation.

Thanks a lot!