[ARCHIVED] Large course storage performance issues?

[a_mcelroy]

Hi, we are looking some expertise from other Canvas users around large Canvas course storage requests.

We are getting requests to increase the Canvas storage size to 10GB+ and are concerned that this may cause performance issues from within the course in Canvas. 

How large are your courses? Do you advise staff to use other tools to upload material? Have you seen any performance issues with large courses?

This is in relation to music/film source files.

Many thanks in advance!

[bneporadny]

Hi Mia,

What type of material or resources are instructors uploading that are causing the courses to be 10+ GB? Typically when I see courses growing to that size it is because they are uploading a lot of videos that require a lot of storage space. When we see this we recommend using a third party system (YouTube, Google Drive, One Drive, Panopto, Relay, etc.) to store said videos and then link out to them. 

Any additional information about what is causing the courses to require storage of 10+GB might help us with other recommendations. 

[a_mcelroy]

Thanks Brian!

Staff do have access to an alternative platform for upload of music/videos, the file types in question are source files which could be from editing software and other file formats such as CAD files.

Have there been any considerations/issues around permissions from using other tools? 

[acolvin]

Brian, I know that a number of our faculty do not feel comfortable using third party hosting sites for their videos (especially the ones they made themselves).

We've had several instructors request that they have more storage in their shells made available. So far we haven't heard of any issues with performance.

[a_mcelroy]

Thanks Aimee!

That's is good to know, would you be able to share the highest amount of storage in any one Canvas course? Just to give us an idea of what amount hasn't caused issues for you.

How many users/courses would you have in your instance of Canvas?

Thanks in advance.

[acolvin]

We usually just double the amount of standard storage in a course if an instructor requests it. We don't really publicize that we do it. 

So, it's not large numbers of people/courses. I suspect though, as we continue to encourage video creation to help with instructor presence in our courses, that the demand will become greater.