Solid Storage

Solid Storage is an Active Storage service adapter that stores blobs in the database and serves them using X-Sendfile and adheres to the Active Storage service contract.

S3, Azure, R2, GCS all cost money. When starting out and trying to keep costs low, storing files in the database is just fine. So why not just use the disk adapter? The disk adapter only works if you are on a single server, and if you are on a single server, the disk adapter can be cumbersome to backup. With data in the database, it is easy to backup by incorporating into your current database backup process. Having your files easily backup-able will also make your app more portable. Solid Storage also uses X-Sendfile just like the disk adapter so you get all the upside of the disk adapter.

1. bundle add solid_storage
2. bin/rails solid_storage:install

This will configure Solid Storage as an Active Storage adapter by overwritting config/storage.yml, create db/storage_schema.rb, and set the production adapter to :solid_storage.

You will then have to add the configuration for the storage database in config/database.yml. If you're using SQLite, it'll look like this:

production:
  primary:
    <<: *default
    database: storage/production.sqlite3
  storage:
    <<: *default
    database: storage/production_strorage.sqlite3
    migrations_paths: db/storage_migrate

...or if you're using MySQL/PostgreSQL/Trilogy:

production:
  primary: &primary_production
    <<: *default
    database: app_production
    username: app
    password: <%= ENV["APP_DATABASE_PASSWORD"] %>
  cable:
    <<: *primary_production
    database: app_production_storage
    migrations_paths: db/storage_migrate

Then run db:prepare in production to ensure the database is created and the schema is loaded.

It's also recommended to move Active Storage models into the storage database as well by adding an initializer:

ActiveSupport.on_load(:active_storage_record) do
  connects_to(database: { writing: :storage })
end

Options are set with config.solid_storage.

The options are:

• connects_to - set the Active Record database configuration for the Solid Storage models. All options available in Active Record can be used here.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.