I understand it's not best practice to store (especially large) attachments/files in a database (PostgreSQL in my case) as it could tank performance depending on how your queries are formatted. I would like to instead maybe store a pointer to the file location on disk, but this isn't portable between devices long term. I don't really have the means or manpower to run my own CDN for a project where only the project itself needs access to the files....what should I do?
One option that might maybe work is to devise and run an API for storing and retrieving attachments on the same network, but I'd be worried about testing and prod referencing the same set of files leading to potential collisions or other potential don't-touch-prod-data issues