Managing large binary files with Git

Question

I am looking for opinions of how to handle large binary files on which my source code (web application) is dependent. We are currently discussing several alternatives:

Answer 1

If the program won't work without the files it seems like splitting them into a separate repo is a bad idea. We have large test suites that we break into a separate repo but those are truly "auxiliary" files.

However, you may be able to manage the files in a separate repo and then use git-submodule to pull them into your project in a sane way. So, you'd still have the full history of all your source but, as I understand it, you'd only have the one relevant revision of your images submodule. The git-submodule facility should help you keep the correct version of the code in line with the correct version of the images.

Here's a good introduction to submodules from Git Book.