OTF (3/11/2013)
This is more of a question that it is a solution but, Jeff, with the advent of filestream technology in more recent versions of sql server have you used that approach or is that more or less what you are refering to by the "file path reference approach"?
I'd have to include FileStream in the same bucket as the "File Path Reference" approach with some reservations. To be sure, I've not used FileStream, yet (too much on my plate for now), but I like what I see in the documentation. One of the things that would be important to me is that other applications should be able to use the files in the data containers that FileStream uses without having to go through anything having to do with SQL Server or FileStream. For example, I'd like folks to be able to get to the files using only, say, Windows Explorer and be able to open up a PDF or a JPG or whatever just by double-clicking on it. I also need to be able to "update" the content of a file simply by replacing it through something as simple as the Command Prompt. If that can't be done in FileStream data containers directly (and I haven't found such explicit information in the documentation, yet), then Filestream wouldn't work so well for the things I need to do.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.