Separating files from your hosting.
WHAT IT MEANS
Uploaded images, documents and video stored with a storage provider rather than on your hosting account, and served from there.
WHY IT HELPS
Disk and inode usage on your hosting drops substantially Backups become smaller and faster Media is delivered by infrastructure designed for it Your account is no longer the bottleneck for media
WHO BENEFITS
Media-heavy sites: galleries, property listings, portfolios
Sites approaching disk or inode limits because of uploads Anyone whose backups have become unwieldy
HOW IT WORKS
A plugin uploads new media to the storage provider and rewrites the URLs to point there.
Existing media can usually be migrated in bulk.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
Another service to maintain and pay for Another place to back up, or to confirm is backed up Media URLs on a different domain, which is usually fine
FOR VIDEO SPECIFICALLY
Do not host video on shared hosting. A video platform is the right answer regardless of anything else.
THE PRACTICAL POINT
Worth considering once media is the majority of your disk usage.
