version control on large files

Question

We happily use SVN for SCM at work. Currently I've got our binary assets in the same SVN repository as our code. SVN supports very large files (it transmits them 'streamily' to keep memory usage sane), but it is SLOOWWWWW.

What asset management software do you recommend, for about a GB (and growing) worth of assets? We would prefer branching and merging (different assets & config files go to different customers).

Answer 1

Please be very aware that it is almost impossible to merge binary files! At least automatically. At least I've never heard of a program that supports three-way merging on a binary format. Let alone conflict resolving.

That's why most asset management tools don't have branching, since it makes little sense since you can't merge again. Locking and linear history is better. If you want to "branch", then make a copy of the file with history.

Answer 2

At my company, we use Documentum as a ECMS, managing lots (and I mean really lots) of binary files. Documentum (or other ECMS like Alfresco) are supposed to be the "right" solution to manage documents. Documentum supprots tagging and branching, and can expose files as WebDAV (so integration into your workflow can be more or lessa transparent).

That's the theory. In practice, we found Documentum slow, hard to configure and manage. And honestly, even if we have lots of documents, most of them are not larger than a few 100's Mo.

This answer more of what you should not do than what you should do ... sorry ...