[Zope] storing in ZODB vs filesystem

[Phil Glaser]

Hi,

> It should not be a problem to store at least ten-thousands of documents
> inside the ZODB. At least some popular websites running on Zope are using
> a ZODB based solution for all their content.

But doesn't that cause the size of ZODB to grow more quickly than if you
were to store uploaded files on the filesystem and then just wrap meta data
around them with LocalFS? My understanding is that your process space needs
to have enough RAM to contain the ZODB index, which is typtically about 20%
the size of Data.fs. If the index has to be paged out, performance slows to
a grind. If so, storing files in ZODB would not run into problems if you've
got adequate RAM and/or can afford to distribute ZODB onto it's own ZEO
server. But if you've got hardware limits, it seems like it would be safer
to store the files in the filesystem. I've always assumed that that's the
whole point of LocalFS.

Is all this plausible, or am I barking up the wrong tree? Please correct me
if I'm wrong because this is an issue for an app I'm in the process of
spec'ing out.

Regards,

Phil