albums folder outside of g2data

Hello everyone

I'm trying to find a way to get the albums folder out of g2data folder.
Running Gallery with the g2data folder on a network drive slow down the site way to much.
Been able to specify an external folder for the albums folder and a local one for g2data make a lot of sense for that situation.

Anyone know a mod or code hack to make Gallery work that way?

I took the time to do more testing about it and also check some galleries web access logs to confirm user pattern on how they browse the gallery.

From the data i have, most people browse quickly through the thumbnail or take more time to check resized picture one by one.
Browsing the original 3.3K x 2.5K picture isn't making any sense unless you have a huge display that support over 3.3K width.
btw Samsung biggest monitor is 30" wide at 2560 x 1600 and the large format 82" wide at 1920 x 1080.
If you are browsing the very large original it is clear it going to be a little slower because of the size anyway.

The global g2data folder size, without the albums folder, is between 7% to 15% of the albums folder size.
Accessing one huge file remotely is nothing compare to multiple small files where you waste most of your time in IO command instead of transferring data.

Benefit can be as simple as saving disk space to more complex thing like trying to reduce the IO on a virtual server.
Reduced TCO for a home network with a cheap NAS. Why rely on Os, cheap raid card etc when it can be done inexpensively and almost hassle free.
Reduced TCO for a corporate network or ISP with NAS that can be shared with countless host
etc.

Disadvantage
Uploading picture, thumbnail and resize generation take more time

Having the exif/iptc pluging active with the albums folder on a remote drive is useless because the plugin need to read the whole file every time you access a picture.
Maybe the pluging could use the caching system like the rest. The exif data is not going to change unless you put a new file directly into the albums folder.

To patch the problem right now i'm using the mlink feature on win 2K8 and the smbfs mount option on a linux.

But been able to specify a different path would be better solution imo.