Only original image files are stored locally as these image files needs to be used for photo manipulation. For instance, rotating a photo. If everything is stored remotely, the script needs to download the file, perform the manipulation and re-upload it again. These takes time and very often, the script would time out.

If your max_execution_time is set to 30 seconds (most hosting provider does it), the entire process needs to be completed within 30 seconds. Otherwise, you'll hit errors.

Is this also the case for the Avatars?

Can we set it up to run these manipulations on S3 rather than locally? We can change our max_execution_time settings.

It is just that we will be getting a lot more uploads of photographs and we would rather want these to be stored on S3 as you can imagine.

Avatars are also pictures in your albums. You can't run these manipulations on Amazon S3. You can change your max_execution_time but unfortunately you are not the only customer.

Mmmmm, interesting so what exactly is the point of using S3 storage if you can not really benefit by the major advantages of S3 such as storage cost if you still have to keep the original image files local?

Our storage will explode due to our users using our system to store and share photos and albums of photos from events. This is our primary reason for shifting these to S3.

Now if the original files are going to be stored locally then we will need to pay for prime storage space for all images.

Is there any other way to do this where we do not have to keep images on local and S3 storage? Any ideas or advice would be valued, from anyone....

Only the original file is not shared to S3. The rest of the variant's are pushed to S3, therefore it is wrong for you to say that there is no benefits at all.

Mark, again you misunderstood or misinterpreted my comments... Definitely not what I said.

Anyway, I did not say that there was 'no benefits at all'. But if the largest storage of the images (which are the originals) are taking up local server storage instead of S3 which is actually better suited for the volume / size then we are not really benefitting as much as one could.

So all original image files would be stored locally on the server for all photos in all albums, this would quickly grow into a massive size.

It would've been great to use S3 for exactly that purpose.

We will see what we can do about this. The only way around this is to have an option to turn off "image rotation" and have everything pushed to Amazon S3. We won't be able to do this right now but it's definitely something on my mind.

Thanks, that sounds like a plan. Even if it is a slowed down process at the time of making the change it would still have a lot more advantages if the storage was on S3.
Appreciate your efforts and ideas.

No problem.