Dear Friends I just need a piece of help from you.......I am trying to build a database of articles in PDF format....the idea of site is that some authorized users will login and upload the PDF file or URL linking the PDF file and enter the description for the same file (like authors, year of publication and other relevant information regarding the file). The visitors can search the database from a PHP form and download the PDFs. I have started the database in MySQL. Later, I found that MySQL databases are unstable as the size of DB increases.........My database is expected to be a few 100GBs in size and may reach upto terabytes soon...... Now, my question is, which RDBMS should I try to get stable and scalable database without a compromise of speed......Also, kindly suggest me some scripts that I can refer. Thanks in advance.
If you are looking for a scalable, fast and stable database - the answer is oracle. Nothing else comes even close. But to be frank, it is foolishness to store all PDF files in database. That is a slow and high overhead situation. You just need to store the related info in database and PDF as files in protected directories. Your script will have to do the job of locating the file required and write the file to the output / redirect to the correct URL. You may take a look at how vbulletin stores the files when attachment is stored as files. You may also take a look at some good file hosting scripts. Arranging the files in logical folders are protecting it from the people you dont want to give access to is important, and it is not something hard to do!
I do agree with alemcherry in this matter. I believe most PHP based document management such as knowledgetree and dotproject document handler uses the same method. It only stores the document's metadata/properties in the database.