Essentially it exploits the sendifle() sys. call results in transmitting files via the kernel.
Nginx should have the equivalent too.
Also look into related http settings like 'Expires' header to ensure it is set far into the future - i.e. maximizing caching on the client side. See more details here:
Use S3, and their website feature if youd like. If you expect moderate traffic use CloudFront. The CloudFront data transfer rates are cheaper than S3, IIRC.
Shouldn't be hard to setup a few instances (based on your traffic profile) to host the static files esp. in conjunction with a CDN like Cloudfront.
If you are using apache, you can use the following directive, EnableSendFile:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#enablesendfil...
Essentially it exploits the sendifle() sys. call results in transmitting files via the kernel.
Nginx should have the equivalent too.
Also look into related http settings like 'Expires' header to ensure it is set far into the future - i.e. maximizing caching on the client side. See more details here:
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html