Nodejs and Streaming file upload

Hello,

I am building out a nodejs Proof-of-concept app where a user submits a file for upload, then the nodejs server uploads it to box (which another app will do other stuff with the box data). I have this part working using the node api.

I am using expressjs and was planning on using a library called multer which handles file uploads. I realized however it first saves files to the disk and then you open a read file stream to then upload the file to box.

Per discussion with my colleague, a requirement we have is some video files might be ~200-300 mb. Has anyone come up with a solution that uses Expressjs to upload a large file and directly streams it to box (without caching it on the server?) I saw on the box-sdk that the chunked uploader uses readable-streams, but wasn't too sure if an existing design pattern is out there for my intended use case.

Thanks!

jcleblanc

January 23, 2020 12:07

Hi ,

The chunked upload mechanism that you came across will be the best method for large file sizes like this. There are some best practices / patterns around this, including preflight checks, which we have documented here (preflight check) and here (chunked upload).

- Jon

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