FILESTREAM Data Type in SQL Server 2008

FILESTREAM Data Type in SQL Server 2008

The new SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM data type enables SQL Server applications to store unstructured data, such as documents and images, on the file system with a pointer to the data in the database. This enables client applications to leverage the rich NTFS streaming APIs and performance of the file system while maintaining transactional consistency between the unstructured data and corresponding structured data with same level of security. Backups can include or exclude the binary data, and working with the data is with the standard SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements in T-SQL. FILESTREAM storage is implemented as a varbinary(max) column in which the data is stored as BLOBs in the file system. The sizes of the BLOBs are limited only by the volume size of the file system. The standard varbinary(max) limitation of 2-GB file sizes does not apply to BLOBs that are stored in the file system. To learn more about this new feature click here.