Can NocoBase Handle Large File Attachments for Long-Term Use in Office Environment?

English Forum
1

Hi NocoBase team and community,

We’re excited to start using NocoBase in our office setup. We’ve deployed it with Docker and have 20 users actively working in the system.

Our use case includes storing records like:

  • Purchase Orders
  • Proof of Deliveries
  • Invoices
  • Supporting attachments (images, scanned PDFs, videos)

Each record can have multiple file attachments, and some files (especially scanned PDFs or videos) can be large — up to 20MB per file, with potentially 20+ files per record.

We’ve configured separate Docker volumes for:

  • PostgreSQL (pg_data)
  • File storage (storage_data)
  • Redis (redis_data)

We’re currently using NocoBase’s default local file storage, but we’re planning for long-term use — potentially years of records with thousands of file uploads.

Questions:

  1. Can NocoBase handle large volumes of files and large individual file sizes (e.g. 25MB each) for long-term use without performance degradation?
  2. Is there a recommended limit to the number of files per record or total files per volume?
  3. Would you recommend switching to external object storage for better scalability and performance? If so, which option would you suggest for the easiest setup and integration with NocoBase? As we are new to Nocobase
  4. Any best practices for organizing file storage or optimizing attachment performance?

We want to ensure our system stays responsive and reliable even after storing hundreds of thousands of attachments over time.

Thanks in advance for your guidance and for the amazing work on NocoBase!

2

Hi @Sohail2949000, based on your description, we recommend using a dedicated file storage service such as Amazon S3. You can then use the S3 (Pro) plugin to connect to this storage service.
Neither the quantity, size, nor performance will be affected.

docs.nocobase.com/handbook/file-manager/storage/s3-pro/

3

Dear,

Thank you so much for your quick response — we truly appreciate your support.

I just wanted to ask if there’s any other alternative solution available? We’re a newly established company and unfortunately, we don’t have much in-house IT expertise. Even our current Docker setup was handled by an external freelancer, so we’re concerned that if any technical issues arise in the future, we might struggle to resolve them on our own.

Thanks again for your time and help. We really value the great work you’re doing with NocoBase!
Muhammad

4

It’s not complicated and doesn’t require any development—just an initial configuration, similar to how you’re currently handling deployment and upgrades. Storing the files in S3 would be safer and more cost-effective.

5

Thank you for your reply!

Just to clarify — does this plugin work with the Community Edition of NocoBase, or is it only available in the paid editions?

We’re currently starting out with the Community Edition to start with NocoBase. If the plugin isn’t supported in this version, is there any recommended workaround or alternative method we could use?

Appreciate your guidance!

6

Commercial plugins can be used in any version, including the community version.