RE: [Zope] alternative storage managers ?

Or is it necessary to store these objects externally as pickle-objects and store only a referenz to them in the ZODB ?

Have a look at ExtFile/ExtImage, which stores metadata in the ZODB and the rest on the filesystem. It might very well be the best solution (in my opinion) to store large objects through Zope: http://www.zope.org/Members/MacGregor/ExtFile/ HTH Jonathan