Prefer to pull items from storage rather than suppliers

[AartBluestoke]

Problem description:
if your storage is further from the requester than the supplier, you can't clear storage, except manually, while the supply of items to the supplier chest continues.

It would be nice if there was a toggle button on a requester to "prefer items in storage" to prioritize storage over suppliers, as for items with a plentiful supply you might not want to have a large backlog in storage.

[Khyron]

The simplest way to achieve this is to use a smart inserter on the provider chest and configure it to stop inserting new items while there are already X items in the network. Once the bots empty the provider chest they'll seek the item from elsewhere in the network and start taking from the storage chest.

IMHO it's best practice to set smart inserter limits on any item entering the logistics network.

I think this thread is related: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5250#p40477

[katyal]

Heres how I do it:

supply = Smart inserter placing items into an active provider, with a logistics condition to limit production to however many I want in storage.
Storage = plain old storage chest, items will be brought here as they are produced
requester = only items available are in storage so they come from storage.

[bobingabout]

I usually do use the smart inserter, depending on the item I can set it to add only a single stack of said item to the logistic network, or enough to fill an entire chest. if it's a very high demand item with several factories producing it, I may even set it to a limit able to fill several chests, but I almost always use the smart inserter on the output of a factory.