The cons of database storage

1. The obvious increase in overhead, making your application slower.

2. Database storage can be expensive

3. your code will be slighty more complex. (comment and structure clearly and it's not an issue)

As for benefits of Database storage think of it this way

1. You've essentially one very BIG file to back up, but one none the less. This single file contains every other file which has been uploaded. It's cleaner and simpler then having to back up several files.

2. Databases like MySQL support server clustering so you can just connect to ONE database and have 10 machines at your disposal. Retrieving the file info is a task of simply querying it and then decoding it (You are using base64?). Correct me if I'm wrong on this part though - I read about the server clustering in passing.

3. What do companies most often spend more money taking care of? their databases. Think about it.

When you have the machine power to carry it out I'd go with database storage, if you've got the raw ammount of storage and not so much CPU then a simple file server type server is good.

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"What everyone seems to forget is that while knowledge certainly is something - it's the implementation of knowledge that brings power" - Andres Galindo.