How to store large chunks for binary data into the DB?

From what I can see, the 'varbinary(max)' data type is not supported, and the 'image' data type is supposed to go away. Is there some other way to store large chunks (10MB to 100MB) of data into an SSEv DB?

If I have to use the 'image' data type to so this, does anyone have a code sample that would let me push an array() of numbers into an 'image' field, and unload an 'image' field into an array()?

TIA

Pat

That hardly makes sense to store 100M of binary data in the database even without 4GB database size limit. Consider storing file name instead.

|||ok but say i need to store an arbitrary large amount of data in a database and it needs to be only one file, what would you suggest|||

OK, say you have huge files in the DB. Now, how you going to work with them? Run DataReader and load them into memory? How you going to update them? Say, you need to change one bit in a huge file. With file system you open a file, seek to position and change this bit. With database you have to load entire file into memory, change one bit and save it back. Don’t you think it will be a bit slow if file is huge?

Why not simply keep big files where they belong – on a file system so you can work with them easily?

As to one file equipment, I don't quite understand it. Are you working on some special file system which only allows for one file?

|||Ilya: That is what "structured storage" is supposed to be for. I.e. ILockBytes|||

That needs support from the database and I don't believe it's supported by SQL Ev. No problems with files on the other hand. I also don't believe it's available on devices at all (SQL Ev used to be SQL CE), but memory mapped files API is available.

|||

SQL Server CE/Mobile 3.0 supports ILockBytes in OLEDB Provider. I dont know if ILockBytes exists in managed code!

Thanks,

Laxmi