How is IMCE browser serving files? [#1439402]

Hi all - I have been struggling with implementing Drupal for my website for some time. This is my first post - so I am not jumping on with my first issue and spamming the site! Hope this is an okay format for this question.

What I need is a per-user download directory for my site. User logs in and only sees his/her folder populated with files, preferably that I've uploaded via FTP directly into their directory. These are large files... 500mb and up.

I installed IMCE on my Drupal 6 as a dependency for another module, and realized it might accomplish what I need out of the box!

Right now a user has their own directory that the IMCE browser shows them, and when I FTP a file into that directory, it shows up. So far so good! When I try to browse (while not logged in) to that file using a real path, I get a HTTP auth-style login window. If I enter the associated user info, it lets me in, otherwise I am not allowed. Great!

The final question is, in this scenario, are the files from the IMCE browser being served by PHP or HTTP? The crux of my long issues with using Drupal for my site is that files are always either served by PHP, or not protected per-user. PHP, as we all know, just can't handle such large file downloads.

I'm using Public Download method in Drupal, btw.

Thanks so much!

Comments

Comment #1

rcb4t2 commented 14 February 2012 at 01:49

PS: I uploaded a test ~500mb file and I'm downloading it right now through IMCE. The download link was a real path to the file, so I'm thinking it's being served by HTTP and not PHP. But it's moving pretty slowly (~140KB/s) compared to downloading it straight off the server, unprotected, outside of drupal, just domain.com/file.abc (~400-500KB/s).

Perhaps it's just "that time of day" on my GoDaddy shared server - I don't know how to test this any other way??