We have a potential mobile application project that will need to synchronize a large amount of data between a server and multiple (100+) mobile devices. The data size could be anywhere from a few hundred MB all the way up to several GB of files stored as “attachments” inside a Couch document (or possibly spread across many documents).
Can Couchbase Server and Couchbase Lite handle this amount of data and sync it effectively? Or is there a better alternative out there for this?
Thanks so much.
We are targeting use cases like yours. Currently we store attachments on the file system, so we can handle the raw volume of data, and we are working to enhance our attachment sync w options like deferred download of attachments.
The mobile client can handle large attachments but there’s currently a 10MB limit on attachment size due to the server. Patches welcome https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mobile-couchbase
The plan is to use CBFS for attachment storage https://github.com/couchbaselabs/cbfs
Is the 10 MB limit a technical hurdle? Or some limitation of the platform for some reason?
Right now we are just storing them as blobs in Couchbase Server, which has a 20MB limit. The 10MB is being conservative about overhead and rev tracking. CBFS is designed for storing large blobs so once we move attachments to it we’ll be able to serve unlimited attachments. Then the limit becomes device storage.
Is there a time frame for CBFS being adopted? My understanding of your response is that the mobile clients are ready to go now, since they store attachments directly on the device filesystem, but Couchbase Server is not ready yet, because it stores them inside the DB itself (as of today) ?
We don’t have an official timeframe but we understand it’s an important feature.
Any updates on this? Is there still an attachment size limit with Couchbase Server, Lite, and Sync Gateway?