Is it possible to "stream" download multiple files from a site?

Question

JavaScript

Good day everyone.
There is a site, it has quite a lot of photos (more than 400GB, on average, the weight of one is 300Kb). The user has the ability to view some of them. He needs the ability to download the selected photos on his computer.
Of course, the good old version is the formation of an archive, but there are several problems:
1. there can be a lot of photos - up to 14GB at a time;
2. not all users have the ability to open archives (due to security policies);
3. load on the server at the time of formation.
This is why the question arose - is it possible to somehow initiate the download of an array of photos so that the user selects a folder and then from the server the upload of previously selected photos goes into it?
I ask for references to literature, hints or options for an alternative solution to the problem.
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You can use TAR as an archive. This gives:

1. Zero additional load on the server due to the lack of compression.
   
2. The ability to programmatically write such an "archive" on the fly directly to an open tcp connection (with the insertion of HTTP headers at the beginning).
   
3. It is even possible to write an archive resume after a connection break via "206 Partial Content" and "Content-Range:", also on the fly, instantly, without rebuilding the archive from the beginning. This is not a trivial task, but it is quite solvable.
   

Answer 2

How about creating a torrent? Personally, I have a "bad" idea. Based on the selected list of files, generate GET requests for each image separately. For security reasons, you will not be allowed into the file system from the browser, and you can also request a download from closed systems. So all the files will fly to some DownLoads. Even so, the archive is the most adequate solution. You can dig into sockets or SignalR. Perhaps they know how to return the file.

Answer 3

if the photo site is yours, use webdav, then mount webdav as a regular network volume.