PDF Storage Architecture & Permanent Preservation Strategy

Mahanama Hayat-e-Nau Digital Archive
Estimated Archive Size: 1.02 GB across 300 Issue Volumes (1978 – 2026)

1. Architectural Strategy: Tiered Storage Model

Committing 1+ Gigabytes of binary PDFs directly into a standard Git repository degrades clone speeds, triggers deployment timeouts, and breaches platform limits.

We adopt a two-tiered storage architecture:

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                                TIER 1: ACTIVE SHOWCASE                          |
|  - 10 Core Historical Showcase Issues (~73 MB)                                |
|  - Stored in: /public/archive/issues/*.pdf                                     |
|  - Bundled directly into Astro build output for 100% offline & preview fidelity |
|  - Absolute self-hosting, 0 external dependencies                             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
                                       |
                                       v
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                          TIER 2: FULL HISTORICAL REPOSITORY                    |
|  - 300 Discovered Issue PDFs (1.02 GB, 1978–2026)                              |
|  - Storage Engine: Dedicated Cloud Object Storage (Cloudflare R2 / AWS S3)    |
|  - Custom Subdomain / Proxy: /archive/issues/* -> CDN Bucket                   |
|  - Retains immutable SHA-256 verification hashes in migration-manifest.json   |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

2. Naming & Public URL Conventions

2.1 File Naming Convention

All issue files conform to the lowercase slug pattern:

hayat-{year}-{quarter/month}.pdf

Examples:

jul-sep-2026.pdf
jul-dec-2023.pdf
aug-2018.pdf
nov-2016.pdf
apr-1978.pdf

2.2 Public URL Routing

Every PDF is accessible through the canonical static path:

https://hayat-e-nau.netlify.app/archive/issues/{slug}.pdf

3. Git Management & Deployment Footprint

Current Git Status: Tier 1 showcase PDFs (73 MB) are checked into public/archive/issues/ to ensure preview testers and auditors immediately receive valid PDF files.
Production Cutover: Once Tier 2 cloud bucket is provisioned, Netlify proxy redirects (_redirects) route /archive/issues/* directly to the bucket origin with edge caching headers (Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable).

4. Backup & Long-Term Preservation Protocol

Primary Master Archive: An offline archival hard drive maintained at Markaz Jamiat-ul-Falah, Bilariyaganj, Azamgarh.
Secondary Cloud Mirror: Encrypted Google Workspace Drive storage + S3-compatible Wasabi/R2 bucket.
Integrity Validation: Automated monthly integrity worker running SHA-256 checks against src/data/migration-manifest.json.