Storing Files in table

[edmana]

Happy New Year All!

I was wondering if anyone had experience storing files in a table. By this I mean storing the actual file content in a row, such as a .pdf file or a .jpg.

The items themselves would be anywhere from 50K to about 2-3 megs.

I take it this is not the most efficient when the amount of rows grows.

I have also seen just the storage of the path to the file in a column. In this case it would be text only.

Anyone do either and have pros/cons they can share?

Thanks!
Ed

 

[TheBugSlayer]

We store logo files (.BMP or .JPG) in a table. They are pretty small. We have not have a problem so far. However, we have an entire file server dedicated to our .PDF files due to their size and volume. The overhead of managing those in SQL Server would be counterproductive.

MCP SQL Server 2000, MCTS SQL Server 2005, MCTS SQL Server 2008 (DBD, DBA)

 

[gmmastros]

What version of SQL Server are you using? I'm not familiar with it, but I think SQL2008 has some osrt of filestream data type, or something like that. A little googling would probably be in order.


-George
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
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"The great things about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - Fortune Cookie Wisdom

 

[gmmastros]

This seems like a good place to start your research if you are using SQL 2008.

http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1489

-George
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
My Blogs
SQLCop
"The great things about standards is that there are so many to choose from." - Fortune Cookie Wisdom

 

[djj55]

George, Thanks for the link, I saw it early this morning then my boss came in and said I will need to build a server for storing images.

One comment on the link is that "sp_filestream_configure" is no longer a command. Need to use

EXEC sys.sp_configure N'filestream access level', N'2'

Notice the 2 instead of 3 as the link's example states.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[djj55]

Sorry forgot to say I am using SQL2008R2

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!