Large-scale website image storage

[fooman]

I’m just curious. How do large-scale websites like FB and twitter store images, and go about retrieving them?
They are named in what looks like a hash of some sort, including the directory structure.

I’m just being curious here. If anyone knows anything as to how and why they do what they do please point me to where I can learn!

[Paulie_D]

Welll here’s one of mine:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/37772_3905461629130_868221159_n.jpg

I think there might be some clues in that string.

[pixelgrid]

i think the 858221159 is the secret right Paulie?

(ontopic look for cdn’s .is like chaching on servers across the world)

[Paulie_D]

TBH I dunno but my assumption is that that that string includes reference to me specifically (by user no or something) and to the specific image.

The ‘folder’ **may** relate to the ‘type’ of photo…in this case it’s a profile header image (hphotos?) etc., etc.

[pixelgrid]

the link is just a subfolder from http://www.akamai.com/ a well known cdn(Content delivery network)

a nice article for fooman getting started http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network

[Paulie_D]

>why do they even bother renaming it to that?

Because you could have a billion images all called ‘myimage01’. Renaming it makes it unique.

As to how they assemble the string, that’s anyone’s guess.

[Author]

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