Sven Schott wrote:
> I am writing a very simple web based file/asset manager. I was initially 
> thinking of simply creating a database with the info on each file and 
> keeping the files in the filesystem. However, I have begun to wonder if 
> having the files in a database would be faster(or slower). Has anybody 
> had any experience with this sort of thing? Would large databases slow 
> things down? Should I just keep stuff on the filesystem? I have had some 
> issues on the DB with encoding types. I probably wouldn't want to base64 
> encode everything. ;)
> 
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Sven Schott
> 
> 
> 
Having done a gallery-like webpage, both using FS and DB(mysql), I would 
say that using a DB to hold blobs/binaries would be slower, quite 
slower, even adding caching and other optims of mysql, I have keep doing 
it 'cos this way I hold all the data in single db(metadata and binaries) 
but I plan on figuring a way to render the "site" to FS and keep the 
metadata in a db(maybe using sqlite for non-binary-data).

The FS has 6000+ files and I didn't see any slowdown from the server, 
now trying to navigate those on the explorer...ouch, on my experience: 
*[speed] Keep the binaries on FS and other data on a DB.
*[convenience] keep it all on DB(more and easier "control").

Having said so I'm a *hobbyist*, take that into account, not a pro here, 
just my limited experience, besides I read somewhere that in such case 
the Db would be the bottleneck to move all the binary data, FS being 
more efficient. I use Win2k,Apache,Eruby,Mysql with blobs for binaries

Best regards
Adartse