Upload big files to S3 using Node.js

Stream big files from disk and upload them to AWS S3 bucket using chunks

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Overview

Sometimes you need to upload a big file, let say bigger than 100MB. Stream from disk must be the approach to avoid loading the entire file into memory.

AWS API provides methods to upload a big file in parts (chunks).

The main steps are:

• Let the API know that we are going to upload a file in chunks
• Stream the file from disk and upload each chunk
• Let the API know all the chunks were uploaded

The code

      
    /**
     *
     * @param {string} fileName the name in S3
     * @param {string} filePath the absolute path to our local file
     * @return the final file name in S3
     */
    async function uploadToS3(fileName, filePath) {
        if (!fileName) {
            throw new Error('the fileName is empty');
        }
        if (!filePath) {
            throw new Error('the file absolute path is empty');
        }
       
        const fileNameInS3 = `/some/sub/folder/${fileName}`; // the relative path inside the bucket
        console.info(`file name: ${fileNameInS3} file path: ${filePath}`);

        if (!fs.existsSync(filePath)) {
            throw new Error(`file does not exist: ${filePath}`);
        }

        const bucket = 'my-bucket';
       

        const s3 = new AWS.S3();

        const statsFile = fs.statSync(filePath);
        console.info(`file size: ${Math.round(statsFile.size / 1024 / 1024)}MB`);

        //  Each part must be at least 5 MB in size, except the last part.
        let uploadId;
        try {
            const params = {
                Bucket: bucket,
                Key: fileNameInS3,
            };
            const result = await s3.createMultipartUpload(params).promise();
            uploadId = result.UploadId;
            console.info(`csv ${fileNameInS3} multipart created with upload id: ${uploadId}`);
        } catch (e) {
            throw new Error(`Error creating S3 multipart. ${e.message}`);
        }

        const chunkSize = 10 * 1024 * 1024; // 10MB
        const readStream = fs.createReadStream(filePath); // you can use a second parameter here with this option to read with a bigger chunk size than 64 KB: { highWaterMark: chunkSize }

        // read the file to upload using streams and upload part by part to S3
        const uploadPartsPromise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            const multipartMap = { Parts: [] };

            let partNumber = 1;
            let chunkAccumulator = null;

            readStream.on('error', (err) => {
                reject(err);
            });

            readStream.on('data', (chunk) => {
                // it reads in chunks of 64KB. We accumulate them up to 10MB and then we send to S3
                if (chunkAccumulator === null) {
                    chunkAccumulator = chunk;
                } else {
                    chunkAccumulator = Buffer.concat([chunkAccumulator, chunk]);
                }
                if (chunkAccumulator.length > chunkSize) {
                    // pause the stream to upload this chunk to S3
                    readStream.pause();

                    const chunkMB = chunkAccumulator.length / 1024 / 1024;
                
                    const params = {
                        Bucket: bucket,
                        Key: fileNameInS3,
                        PartNumber: partNumber,
                        UploadId: uploadId,
                        Body: chunkAccumulator,
                        ContentLength: chunkAccumulator.length,
                    };
                    s3.uploadPart(params).promise()
                        .then((result) => {
                            console.info(`Data uploaded. Entity tag: ${result.ETag} Part: ${params.PartNumber} Size: ${chunkMB}`);
                            multipartMap.Parts.push({ ETag: result.ETag, PartNumber: params.PartNumber });
                            partNumber++;
                            chunkAccumulator = null;
                            // resume to read the next chunk
                            readStream.resume();
                        }).catch((err) => {
                            console.error(`error uploading the chunk to S3 ${err.message}`);
                            reject(err);
                        });
                }
            });

            readStream.on('end', () => {
                console.info('End of the stream');
            });

            readStream.on('close', () => {
                console.info('Close stream');
                if (chunkAccumulator) {
                    const chunkMB = chunkAccumulator.length / 1024 / 1024;

                    // upload the last chunk
                    const params = {
                        Bucket: bucket,
                        Key: fileNameInS3,
                        PartNumber: partNumber,
                        UploadId: uploadId,
                        Body: chunkAccumulator,
                        ContentLength: chunkAccumulator.length,
                    };

                    s3.uploadPart(params).promise()
                        .then((result) => {
                            console.info(`Last Data uploaded. Entity tag: ${result.ETag} Part: ${params.PartNumber} Size: ${chunkMB}`);
                            multipartMap.Parts.push({ ETag: result.ETag, PartNumber: params.PartNumber });
                            chunkAccumulator = null;
                            resolve(multipartMap);
                        }).catch((err) => {
                            console.error(`error uploading the last csv chunk to S3 ${err.message}`);
                            reject(err);
                        });
                }
            });
        });

        const multipartMap = await uploadPartsPromise;

        console.info(`All parts have been upload. Let's complete the multipart upload. Parts: ${multipartMap.Parts.length} `);

        // gather all parts' tags and complete the upload
        try {
            const params = {
                Bucket: bucket,
                Key: fileNameInS3,
                MultipartUpload: multipartMap,
                UploadId: uploadId,
            };
            const result = await s3.completeMultipartUpload(params).promise();
            console.info(`Upload multipart completed. Location: ${result.Location} Entity tag: ${result.ETag}`);
        } catch (e) {
            throw new Error(`Error completing S3 multipart. ${e.message}`);
        }

        return fileNameInS3;
    }
      
    

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