Personally, I had good results storing binary files in a database. See some technical advice at
Handling huge BLOB fields with DBI and MySQL.

Notice that you don't have to store the file as one whole field, but you can split it into easy-to-manage chunks. That node explains how to store and retrieve files that way.

About using the file system instead of a database, in the same thread there is an exchange of opinions, where both sides are evaluated. In addition to what is stated there, I would say that storing in a database is advisable if you plan to replicate the database to some other machine. Since MySQL has a built-in replication engine, you should consider this fact as well.

 _  _ _  _  
(_|| | |(_|><
 _|

In reply to Re: Storing files in a database by gmax
in thread Storing files in a database by mystik

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.