This question is best answered by "it depends". There are valid reasons to go either way. Others will list why binaries should be stored on the OS rather than in a DB.
Here are a few reasons why it may help to store binaries in a DB. * Consolidated data store eases synchronization of binaries to metadata. * Rollbacks of failed data transactions won't leave orphaned binary files. * May simplify migrating a system to a different data store location. Our ID photo software stores images directly to a SQL Server database. It is pretty easy to pull them out for use on a web page. Personally, I really like having the binary information stored with the textual information. m!ke -----Original Message----- From: Richard Dillman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 1:40 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Images in the database good or bad? I'm in the process of designing a site that will allow people to upload (JPG,PDF,DOC,XLS) files. I'm looking at about 1-4 mb each item. Is it better to do a file upload, or better to insert to the database? Honestly I'm looking at a long-term answer here for a government contract. The items can be re-uploaded via an admin screen. and there will probably be 10,000 new items per year with a 3-year retention schedule. Granted, I'm designing this with SQL server but I will probably want to port this to MySQL for the private sector when it's all done. Please bare that in mind. In a hosted solution where I might wind up with 20 of these apps on the same sandbox which do you see as the better option? I'd really like to get a lot of pro and con feedback on this. -- -- Richard Dillman ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:301807 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
