I've been pondering this issue for some time now. Keeping files on the file system is OK, but what if you need to run multiple rail servers? The file system then needs to be a network file system accessible by all of the rails servers. This was the whole rational for storing the sessions in the database.
I looked at ferret for full text search and had this same issue. The indexes are stored in a directory under rails root called indexes. Looking at all the simultaneous access issues around ferret already putting those indices on a network share sounds even scarier.
Is it more painful to use a shared file system or just shove the stuff in the DB? Is storing blobs in the DB really that bad or is that one of those urban legends out there?
For the research paper idea, I would just shove that baby into the database and put a fulltext index on it! (I know I'll be eating these words later).
Mike Vargo
