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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 way it is retrieved or anything else?
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A File System is a collection of raw data files stored in the hard-drive, whereas a database is intended for easily organizing, storing and retrieving large amounts of data. In other words, a database holds a bundle of organized data typically in a digital form for one or more users.
Data redundancy and inconsistency: Redundancy is the concept of repetition of data i.e. each data may have more than a single copy. The file system cannot control the redundancy of data as each user defines and maintains the needed files for a specific application to run.
File systems provide less security in comparison to DBMS. DBMS has more security mechanisms as compared to file systems. It is less expensive than DBMS. It has a comparatively higher cost than a file system.
File system approach used in large systems which interrelate many files. The database system is expensive to design. The file system approach is cheaper to design. Due to the centralization of the database, the problems of data redundancy and inconsistency are controlled.
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.
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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.
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