db4o and alternatives

Question

I've got a Java application that needs to deal with 10s to 100s of gigabytes of data. Any DBMS needs to be embedded. We currently have a db4o solution that is slow, brittle and complicated. I will allow that many of our wounds have been self-inflicted.

Let's posit that this current db4o implementation is unsalvageable. Would people recommend continuing with db4o (and just be more careful in its use)? Or are there other embedded DBs that you can positively recommend?

Thanks for your feedback.

Answer 1

Well db4o isn't made for 10s and 100s of Gigabytes. The absolute maximum for a db4o database is 256 GB when setting the block-size to the allowed maximum . However I would expect that the performance breaks down earlier.

What kind of data do you store? What's the shape of your data? What are your performance characteristics? Without that it's hard to recommend a fitting database.

Anyway, in the Java-Space I made good experience with the H2 database. It is a great relational database. But I cannot tell if your stuff is suited for a relational database.

I also heard many good things about Neo4J, a graph database. Personally I haven-t used it yet, but when your data is more graph oriented, I would look into that.