Use bytearray for blobs or not?

Started by Thomas Güttlerover 7 years ago6 messagesgeneral
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#1Thomas Güttler
guettliml@thomas-guettler.de

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Which alternatives could be useful?

Regards,
Thomas

--
Thomas Guettler http://www.thomas-guettler.de/
I am looking for feedback: https://github.com/guettli/programming-guidelines

#2Achilleas Mantzios
achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com
In reply to: Thomas Güttler (#1)
Re: Use bytearray for blobs or not?

On 4/1/19 1:41 μ.μ., Thomas Güttler wrote:

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Performance (at least for JDBC) is known to be better with blobs.
However, with bytea life is just easier for many reasons (backups, logical replication, other types of replication, sys management, etc).

Which alternatives could be useful?

Regards,
  Thomas

--
Achilleas Mantzios
IT DEV Lead
IT DEPT
Dynacom Tankers Mgmt

#3Thomas Güttler
guettliml@thomas-guettler.de
In reply to: Achilleas Mantzios (#2)
Re: Use bytearray for blobs or not?

Am 04.01.19 um 12:48 schrieb Achilleas Mantzios:

On 4/1/19 1:41 μ.μ., Thomas Güttler wrote:

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Performance (at least for JDBC) is known to be better with blobs.
However, with bytea life is just easier for many reasons (backups, logical replication, other types of replication, sys
management, etc).

I could switch to a s3 like storage server, too. Up to now, this would only be
some lines of code. I could store the s3 IDs in postgres.

--
Thomas Guettler http://www.thomas-guettler.de/
I am looking for feedback: https://github.com/guettli/programming-guidelines

#4Rob Sargent
robjsargent@gmail.com
In reply to: Achilleas Mantzios (#2)
Re: Use bytearray for blobs or not?

On 1/4/19 4:48 AM, Achilleas Mantzios wrote:

On 4/1/19 1:41 μ.μ., Thomas Güttler wrote:

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which
stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Performance (at least for JDBC) is known to be better with blobs.

Do you have any details on which part is slower with bytea? Original
insert, read back to client, general (p)sql access.  I'm moving towards
bytea but still have time to change my mind if I cannot afford the
performance hit.

However, with bytea life is just easier for many reasons (backups,
logical replication, other types of replication, sys management, etc).

Yes, and in my case I even get a cheap compression from the original file.

Show quoted text

Which alternatives could be useful?

Regards,
  Thomas

#5Achilleas Mantzios
achill@matrix.gatewaynet.com
In reply to: Rob Sargent (#4)
Re: Use bytearray for blobs or not?

On 4/1/19 6:02 μ.μ., Rob Sargent wrote:

On 1/4/19 4:48 AM, Achilleas Mantzios wrote:

On 4/1/19 1:41 μ.μ., Thomas Güttler wrote:

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Performance (at least for JDBC) is known to be better with blobs.

Do you have any details on which part is slower with bytea? Original insert, read back to client, general (p)sql access.  I'm moving towards bytea but still have time to change my mind if I cannot
afford the performance hit.

No since I never used them (blobs) in production. Basically the java driver does not support streaming. So for very large data (e.g. videos, movies, etc) people use blobs.

However, with bytea life is just easier for many reasons (backups, logical replication, other types of replication, sys management, etc).

Yes, and in my case I even get a cheap compression from the original file.

Which alternatives could be useful?

Regards,
  Thomas

--
Achilleas Mantzios
IT DEV Lead
IT DEPT
Dynacom Tankers Mgmt

#6Thomas Güttler
guettliml@thomas-guettler.de
In reply to: Thomas Güttler (#1)
Re: Use bytearray for blobs or not?

I came across this article, and now I think blob in s3 in s3-object-id in PostgreSQL
are the best solution for me:

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/BinaryFilesInDB

I hope the wiki page is still valid.

Regards,
Thomas

Am 04.01.19 um 12:41 schrieb Thomas Güttler:

Some months ago I wrote a little application with Python+Django which stores
blob data in bytearrays.

It works.

In the future there will be a lot more traffic, and I am unsure
if this is really a good solution. I know this is more FUD than
concrete PG issue.

What do you think?

Which alternatives could be useful?

Regards,
  Thomas

--
Thomas Guettler http://www.thomas-guettler.de/
I am looking for feedback: https://github.com/guettli/programming-guidelines