Storing PDF files as binary objects in SQL Server, yes or no?

Question

I have to find a design decision for the following task:

I have a SQL Server database and it contains a table of orders. PDF documents will be uploaded by users through

Answer 1

I would recommend AGAINST storing the files in SQL. You are adding extra overhead when retrieving the files. IIS is really efficient at serving up files, but with SQL are the storage facility you now have introduced a bottle neck, as you now have to hop from your web server to your SQL Server and back to get the file.

When you store your files on the webserver, your process can determine the appropriate file based on the criteria you've listed, point to it and serve it. Document management systems such as Documentum and Alfresco store the files on a share, and this allows you great flexibility with respects to back up and and redundant storage.