1 Introduction

By default, SAFR storages all database data, image files and log files on the same drive as application executable and configuration files. Following shows the default storage location for all SAFR data files:

Windows¹	C:\ProgramData\RealNetworks\SAFR\
Linux	/opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/

Application executable and configuration stored in C:\Program Files\RealNetworks\SAFR
SAFR Windows installer offers selection of alternate installation location. This only impacts the location of Application executable files. The data files are not changed.

This article explains how to deploy SAFR to locate certain folders on alternate drives. That is, folders containing data that take significant storage, require high performance, or grow in potentially unexpected ways.

This article explains how to locate the following folders on alternate drives:

Database files - Metadata associated with person records and event metadata.
Images - Enrollment images and event image files (face and scene images amongst others).
Log files - Application log files as well as other logs such as audit logs

This procedure should be followed where high volume is expected. That is, cases where:

Number of devices (Camera or Readers) exceeds 100
Number of events per hour exceeds 50,000
Number of enrolled people exceeds 200,000 (if not using external sync) or 50,000 if using external sync.

2 Alternate Storage Folders

Below is a table of folders that should be considering when setting up alternate storage. Not all storage needs to be migrated to alternate storage. See comments for which folders you should consider alternate storage. Where

Name	Source Folder Path ¹	Volume	Move?	Folder Usage
Database^2,3	mongo/data	High	Yes
Image Files⁴	cv-storage/objs/ <tenant>	High	Yes
Image Metadata⁵	cv-storage/objs/ metadata/<tenant>	High	Yes
ARES Logs	ares/logs	Medium (if used)	No	SAFR Actions log files. Only applicable if running SAFR Actions scripts.
COVI Logs⁵	covi/logs	High	No	Logging for all person sync
Event Logs⁵	cv-event/logs	High	No	Logging for all events
Object Storage Logs	cv-object-storage/logs	High	No	Logging for image storage
Reporting Logs⁵	cv-reports/logs	Low	No	Logging for report configuration
Web Console Logs⁵	cv-web-console/logs	Low	No	Logging for web console access.
Recognition Service Logs⁵	face-service/logs	Medium	No	Logging for face recognition and other analytics.
Load Balancer Logs⁵	loadbalancer/logs	Low	No	Logging for load balancing between safr instances. Only applicable for clustering.
Database Logs⁵	mongo/logs	High	No	Logging for database activities.
Device/Feed Mgmt Logs⁵	virga/logs	High	No	Logging for reader and camera status and configuration.

Relative to application data folder (see above).

The optimal block size for database drive or partition is 4k.
For Linux deployment, use XSF File system for database.
Images can be mapped to a single folder (cv-storage) or 2 folders (cv-storage/objs/<tenant> and /cv-storage/objs/metadata/<tenant>). The advantage of 2 drives or partitions is to allow different block sizes. Metadata should be stored on a drive with block size of 512 bytes while images should be stored on a drive with block size of 30k.
All logs can be stored in a single partition or drive.

For each of the above folder, the indicated Folder Path is the target for the symbolic link that will be used to reference the alternate drive. This is described further below.

2.1 About SAFR Log Files

SAFR generates log files separately for each service. There are 10 services in total. Most log files are rotated daily. By default, 2 weeks of log files are retained. Older files are automatically deleted. Each day, the active log file is compressed into a gzip format and a new log file is tarted.

Size varies by log file and log level as well as activity. There is no simple way to predict estimated capacity. For typical deployments, 200 GB of log file storage should be allocated. For large deployment, consult SAFR Solutions Engineering team.

3 Configuring Alternate Storage Location

The process for creating alternate storage location and linking to it is the same for all folders. The process is described below.

Some folder will require migration to avoid loss of data. This includes database and image storage folders.

This process is described for Windows and Linux separately.

3.1 Linux

3.1.1 Moving Database or Image Files

For Database, Image Files and Image Metadata, the existing folders must be moved to the new location before mounting the drive to the new location. This procedure describes how that is done.

Following instructions are for cv-storage folder. Same procedure applies to other folders.

Instruction	Example
Mount the target drive using OS specific methods.	See OS specific methods for mounting storage. The drive should be mounted to (e.g. /mnt/images). Format drive if needed. See notes in table above for recommended block sizes.
If needed, create new target folder on the target drive	mkdir /mnt/disk1/images
Stop SAFR Server	/opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/bin/stop
Move files to new folder on new drive	mv /opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/cv-storage/objs/safraccount1 /mnt/disk1/images
Create a symbolic link to the new folder location	ln -s /mnt/disk1/images /opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/cv-storage/objs/safraccount1
Start SAFR Server	/opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/bin/start

3.1.2 Moving Log Files

To store log files in alternate location, the process does not require moving files first:

Instruction	Example (for covi logs)
Mount the target drive using OS specific methods.	See OS specific methods for mounting storage. The drive or partition should be mounted to (e.g. /mnt/logs). Format drive if needed.
If needed, create new target folder on the target location	mkdir /mnt/disk1/logs/covi
Stop SAFR Server	/opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/bin/stop
Remove source folder	rm -r /opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/covi/logs
Create a symbolic link to the new folder location	ln -s /mnt/disk1/logs/covi /opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/covi/logs
Start SAFR Server	/opt/RealNetworks/SAFR/bin/start

3.2 Windows

3.2.1 Moving Database or Image Files