Chuck Thier wrote: > We are beginning work on an internal database, and have chosen to use SAP DB. So far I have been very impressed. A large > part of our database will be storing graphic files. These files will range from several K to several MB. One thing that I wanted to > get your opion about is this: Should I store these graphic files internally in the database as a long or should I store the paths to the > actual files on a file server? We will design the machine that will be hosting the database around the requirements of the > database so it really isn't too much of a factor at the moment. Thanks in advance for any input.
Hi, the opinion here is: use the database for storing the files. It is not that we always prefer the database, but if you store part of the data in the database and part of the data outside the database, you will always come to the problem of transaction-handling, rollbacks and recovery. In these cases the data outside and inside the database will usually NOT be consistent after some time, some rollbacks, some recovery. And data which is not consistent is of no real use. To tell you what: SAP uses the database to store the files needed for the Content Server. They do some compression outside the database. This makes inserts/updates for this file-data a little bit slower, but increases the performance (and of course decreases the needed space) of reading. Let us know what your experiences will be. Elke SAP Labs Berlin
