[AccessD] Should I use Attachments?

I've been toying with this new feature, which is basically a binary data
type which a built-in compressor/decompressor. A client and I are
experimenting with it, for one basic reason: a given record might have
associated with it anywhere from 2 to 60 photos. Having that many photos
living in some directory somewhere, especially given their arbitrary names,
can quickly become quite a hassle. On the other hand, simply specifying the
path to a given client's photos seems workable. So I don't yet know which
method we'll choose.

A.

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 7:25 AM, Jim Dettman <jimdettman at verizon.net> wrote:

>
>  I'm not sure what you mean by "not backward-compatible".  It's a new
> feature and did not exist in prior versions, so yes, it would not be
> available in JET (it's an ACE only feature).
>
>  As far as performance, I have not heard anything in that regard.  It's not
> the same animal as an OLE field; there is no OLE wrapper around the object.
> And the data is compressed to boot.  So bloating DB's is a thing of the
> past.
>
>  However because of that, you just can't pull the raw data out and move it
> or use it in some other way.  Also, you still must contend with the ACE DB
> limit of 2GB.
>
>  Given all that, I would still do it the traditional way as Rocky said;
> store a path in the DB and keep everything outside of the DB.
>
> Jim.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Darrell Burns
> Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2011 08:33 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: [AccessD] Should I use Attachments?
>
> New subject: my client wants to link PDF documents to records in an Asset
> table in an A2007 app. The attachment data type is perfect for what I want
> to do, but I've heard bad things about it. I know one caveat is that it's
> not backward-compatible. I've also heard that it's a performance drag. (I
> tried using OLE fields in A2000 a few years ago and quickly abandoned that
> approach). The Asset table would range from a few hundred to a couple
> thousand records per client. I'll be deploying the app as a runtime.
>
> I'd be interested in hearing the pros & cons of attachments.
>
> Thanx,
> DB
>
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