[lightknight]

Depends entirely on what you're doing. If you're just saving large sets of data to the disk, and doing nothing else with them, then yeah, don't use a DB. If you're running lots of random queries on piece-mail parts of several dozen sets of those files, then use a DB.

There's a reason it's called SQL: Structured Query Language. If you're interrogating the data, you want SQL (or something like it). If you're just loading stuff / saving stuff to disk, like a Word file, and not performing any sort of random search or query on it, then yeah, using a DB doesn't make sense.

[jbl]

This was my first reaction, as well. This goes especially for large datasets. If you are making linear passes over very large databases, I don't think I see much advantage in using a DB beyond possible benefits of shared storage.