Should I go with attaching MDF file to SQL Express or a real deployment script to SQL Server?

Question

I am building a blog-like publishing system on ASP.NET 4.0 (with EF 4.0) that I want to be very easily deployable/backupable in the first place. I am at a decision point of whether making the system to create a database in an SQL Server and use that (traditionally), or have a App_Data MDF file in the site and just attach to that one with SQL Express. I know the memory/size limitations of Express editions, and I won't be hitting the limits as this is not a performance-critical business application or any serious stuff. Just a simple CMS with blogs/writings/photos (actual photos are NOT saved in database, just their paths are saved in MDF) and that's it. I see no problem using MDF, but I'm not an expert on the topic too as I've never worked/created a website using MDF file. I always deployed on the SQL Server, but I don't want to deal with users/roles/permissions and the last thing that I want to have a user having installation problems due to database settings.

What should I go with? Any problems that I would face with MDF? Recommendations?

Answer 1

IF you use SQL Server Express - which is a server - I would always opt for a "real" database approach: attach your database to the server, access it by its database name, deploy SQL scripts to update it.

That "attach DB from file path" always seemed like a half-baked and rather messy kludge to me.....

If you don't need that kind of power - investigate SQL Server Compact Edition which is a one-file only, in-process database. It has its limitations - no stored procedures, doesn't support certain data types like VARCHAR(MAX) or XML - but for easier scenarios, it's perfect and easy to use - just deploy it along your app. It's single-user, e.g. you don't share the data between several clients, it's a local store for each user/app on its own