This is a business site with product images.
I have a multisite installation with 3 languages in 3 directories which will later be mapped to completely separate domains by the host when it’s finished.
The media (EDIT: in one of the sites) currently consists almost completely of large images (EDIT: total 1.8GB) that are not language-dependent, and editors will need to add the same images when creating pages with the texts in their language.
However, their media library is currently empty.
Do you recommend the language sites somehow using media from just one of the sites since the content is virtually identical, or do you recommend copying the same media to all the language sites?
I have languages as separate sites because they will differ in structure, but they will use the same images.
If you recommend using one site’s media library, how is it achieved? Network Shared Media plugin doesn’t work for me because its tab doesn’t appear for the Add Image button of a plugin that I must use.
If you recommend copying images, can you recommend the most efficient way of doing this that won’t cause a PHP timeout?
I think separate language site is better in most case, until better auto-translation technology appear. MultiSite Language Switcher plugin is a good plugin for this purpose.
Media can be linked by url, you can even use external/dedicated site for storage block.
If necessary, and there’s no main storage limitations simply create rsync cron to copy media from wp-content/uploads to wp-content/uploads/sites/N where N = number of site.
Difference language does it mean visitor from different country?
If your visitor in each site is from different country I think you should have separate directories. When your visitor getting more. You can scalable your website by moving those site near visitor. So each site is host in different server location.