Saving files inside a SQL Server database

Question

I've read every question and answer on this topic I can find on this site (and others) and still cannot find answers for the following scenario.

I have a SQL Server 2008R2 hosted in a data center. My client is using my Windows application that stores data in a SQL Server 2008R2 database. There are Word, Excel, PDF, JPG, PNG, etc documents that are linked to records in the database. My client needs to have access to these docs from anywhere.

My thinking is that I will save the docs into the database records, thus making them available from anywhere.

My questions are:

1. Am I correct in assuming that if the hosting provider has not turned on FileStream on SQL Server, then I cannot use that facility on my own databases? (This seems like a reasonable assumption but maybe someone can confirm this is not available on an individual database level.)

2. Am I correct in assuming that the hosting provider will also have to allow read/write to a folder structure if I decide to save files directly to disk?

3. Finally, can anyone provide comment on their real-life experiences with saving documents in a "cloud-hosted" SQL Server database. Is performance going to be a technical issue to overcome or simply one of trying users' patience?

Thanks for you help and insights.

Answer 1

1. No, you are not correct. You can still stream files in/out of the database otherwise, just without the ability to use direct file-like URLs which are served by the database itself.

2. Yes. Almost all do, though.

3. Done reasonably, there's no reason it can't work just fine for all but the most extreme performance-critical situations. which is not the same thing as saying that's how you should do it.