Storing PDFs to a database - efficient?

[chronomantic]

Well I'm writing my first CMS in PHP and was curious...

My CMS allows for PDFs and Word Docs to be uploaded. Right now they're being stored into a database under the blob type. Is it efficient to do it this way? Or would it be more efficient to upload PDFs to an actual directory on the hosted account and merely store the URL to the file in a database? Or doesn't it matter?

Thanks! I'm just trying to learn some general best practices 🙂

[Weedpacket]

Some points to consider:

• How will you retrieve/store the BLOBs?

• They're not searchable, so there's not much the database can do with them.

• BLOBs will be backed up with the rest of the database.

• The filesystem is already a database designed for storing binary files efficiently.

• If you store separate files you have to ensure that what is stored and what the database thinks is stored don't go out of sync.

• Unless you want everyone who can access your site to access every file, you need to store the files outside the site's document tree where a URL won't reach (depending on how the site is hosted, this may not be available).

• Along with the above, database storage offers finer access control.

• Your Results May Vary.