openstack-manuals/doc/admin-guide/source/objectstorage-large-objects.rst

Large object support

Object Storage (swift) uses segmentation to support the upload of large objects. By default, Object Storage limits the download size of a single object to 5GB. Using segmentation, uploading a single object is virtually unlimited. The segmentation process works by fragmenting the object, and automatically creating a file that sends the segments together as a single object. This option offers greater upload speed with the possibility of parallel uploads.

Large objects

The large object is comprised of two types of objects:

• Segment objects store the object content. You can divide your content into segments, and upload each segment into its own segment object. Segment objects do not have any special features. You create, update, download, and delete segment objects just as you would normal objects.
• A manifest object links the segment objects into one logical large object. When you download a manifest object, Object Storage concatenates and returns the contents of the segment objects in the response body of the request. The manifest object types are:
  • Static large objects
  • Dynamic large objects

To find out more information on large object support, see Large objects in the OpenStack End User Guide, or Large Object Support in the developer documentation.