Database vs File system storage

Question

Database ultimately stores the data in files, whereas File system also stores the data in files. In this case what is the difference between DB and File System. Is it in the

Answer 1

A database is generally used for storing related, structured data, with well defined data formats, in an efficient manner for insert, update and/or retrieval (depending on application).

On the other hand, a file system is a more unstructured data store for storing arbitrary, probably unrelated data. The file system is more general, and databases are built on top of the general data storage services provided by file systems. ^[Quora]

The file system is useful if you are looking for a particular file, as operating systems maintain a sort of index. However, the contents of a txt file won't be indexed, which is one of the main advantages of a database.

For very complex operations, the filesystem is likely to be very slow.

Main RDBMS advantages:

• Tables are related to each other

• SQL query/data processing language

• Transaction processing addition to SQL (Transact-SQL)

• Server-client implementation with server-side objects like stored procedures, functions, triggers, views, etc.

Advantage of the File System over Data base Management System is:

When handling small data sets with arbitrary, probably unrelated data, file is more efficient than database. For simple operations, read, write, file operations are faster and simple.

You can find n number of difference over internet.

Answer 2

Context: I've written a filesystem that has been running in production for 7 years now. [1]

The key difference between a filesystem and a database is that the filesystem API is part of the OS, thus filesystem implementations have to implement that API and thus follow certain rules, whereas databases are built by 3rd parties having complete freedom.

Historically, databases where created when the filesystem provided by the OS were not good enough for the problem at hand. Just think about it: if you had special requirements, you couldn't just call Microsoft or Apple to redesign their filesystem API. You would either go ahead and write your own storage software or you would look around for existing alternatives. So the need created a market for 3rd party data storage software which ended up being called databases. That's about it.

While it may seem that filesystems have certain rules like having files and directories, this is not true. The biggest operating systems work like that but there are many mall small OSs that work differently. It's certainly not a hard requirement. (Just remember, to build a new filesystem, you also need to write a new OS, which will make adoption quite a bit harder. Why not focus on just the storage engine and call it a database instead?)

In the end, both databases and filesystems come in all shapes and sizes. Transactional, relational, hierarchical, graph, tabled; whatever you can think of.

[1] I've worked on the Boomla Filesystem which is the storage system behind the Boomla OS & Web Application Platform.

Answer 3

The difference between file processing system and database management system is as follow:

1. A file processing system is a collection of programs that store and manage files in computer hard-disk. On the other hand, A database management system is collection of programs that enables to create and maintain a database.

2. File processing system has more data redundancy, less data redundancy in dbms.

3. File processing system provides less flexibility in accessing data, whereas dbms has more flexibility in accessing data.
4. File processing system does not provide data consistency, whereas dbms provides data consistency through normalization.
5. File processing system is less complex, whereas dbms is more complex.

Answer 4

Something one should be aware of is that Unix has what is called an inode limit. If you are storing millions of records then this can be a serious problem. You should run df -i to view the % used as effectively this is a filesystem file limit - EVEN IF you have plenty of disk space.