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There's an old discussion whether and application should store its files in a database or in the filesystem. Both have their pros and cons.

I want to know if there's any specific system for application file storage than can overcome some of the drawbacks of filesystems and databases.

Example:

In a web application that's going to handle about 100K records per year with some (2 to 5) scanned files per record.

  • Databases usually have a performance hit when handling large number of blobs
  • Filesystems usually have problems handling a large number of files in the same directory, and I don't want to care about handling subfolders.

Are there specific file storage systems that are good in a scenario like this one?

pmoleri
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    Sounds like you want Object Storage as an alternative to a database or filesystem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_storage . – HBruijn Nov 19 '13 at 14:16
  • @HBruijn Indeed Object Storage seems to be what I'm looking for. I also found `weed-fs` that has a simple rest api to store and retrieve files. – pmoleri Nov 19 '13 at 15:01
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    aws s3 is another, a number of storage vendors sell appliances with their own or more open protocols and you can build youw own on for instance Lustre. Often a file system works well enough when you store record number 123456.doc in ./6/5/4/123456.doc which should level and scale well enough for incrementing record numbers. – HBruijn Nov 19 '13 at 15:58
  • Thanks @HBruijn, I know AWS S3 but I want a platform that can be used locally. The /6/5/4/123456.doc solution is just the kind of mumbo jambo I want to avoid, I know it's not complicated but is nicer is some other application handles it an exposes a simple Rest API. – pmoleri Nov 19 '13 at 16:51

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