Store XML in XML type field or using FILESTREAM

Question

Hi All,

I am trying to figure out what would be the best method for storing xml documents in the db...if we should use an XML type field or if we should use the newly introduced FILESTREAM? We would have a need to shred those documents for queries and possibly use the FULL TEXT SEARCH to allow for user defined searches on those documents. Does anyone have any thoughts on either approach for SQL server 2008?

Always apprecaite the input I get on this forum...very helpful.

--B

Answer 1

How big will these XML files be??

FILESTREAM really starts to shine when the vast majority of your files are 1 MB+ or more in size.

If your XML is most a few or a few hundred KB, just store it as XML.

Also: if you store it as XML datatype, you can query it using XQuery - that's not possible in a FILESTREAM storage.