A database has about 2000 records, many of them with pdf copies of different documents, associated with each record, that are stored externally via containers.

The database is fully encrypted and on a Filemaker Server on a Windows Server.  It is getting so large that it takes too long to download backups and I'm also worried about the stability of the files.

Each document is in a Container that is External (Secure).  These documents don't actually require encryption, but we'd like to keep it if possible.  The file and the container folders total about 5 GB.

I want to keep the current feature where the record indicates which documents are available for that record and a simple click opens the desired pdf in Preview or Acrobat.

I'd appreciate any recommendations.  Options I'm considering:

1. Somehow reduce the size of each pdf.

2. Keep all of the files in a folder that does not involve containers and have the button open the file through a record and document specific link. I'm not sure this would work because I don't think that most of the users would have access to files on this secure Windows server if the documents weren't specifically in a filemaker container.  They would not have any access at all to files on this Windows server directly.

Five GB doesn't seem all that big, we work with much larger files.  Regarding your options:

1. Sure, you could export field contents and re-import. You'd want to test a few files to see how much you'd really save.

2. How would this change anything? You're still dealing with the same 2000+ PDFs.

If you don't have to encrypt the files, I would lean towards open storage. An advantage of encrypted, other than the obvious security, is that it deals with creating the folders. With open storage you'll need to handle that, but it's a one-time setup that's fairly straightforward.

https://www.proofgeist.com/blog/2023/02/20/easy-external-file-storage-with-uploadcare/

Another options is https://360works.com/supercontainer/

It's a great product, great company, and I've used it in the past, but have found external container storage does the job for me most of the time these days.

Another Option https://cloudcontainer.cc