Store Files in SQL Server or keep them on the File Server?

Question

Currently we have thousands of Microsoft Word files, Excel files, PDF\'s, images etc stored in folders/sub folders. These are generated by an application on a regular basis

Answer 1

I would have both.

I would keep the files renamed with an unique name, thus easier to manage, and i would keep all meta data inside the database (file name, content-type, location on file system, size, description, etcetera), so the files are accessed through the database (indirectly).

Advantages:

• files are easy to handle; you can bring several drives in the mix
• the database can keep any number of meta information, including file description on which you can search against.
• keep track on file accesses and other statistic information
• rearrange the files using various paradigms: tree (directory structure), tags, search or context

You can have compression on a drive also. You can have RAID for backup and speed.