Question

I am working on a web application which stores notes created by users. I am confused between whether to store notes as separate files on filesystem, or use database column for saving the text.

If mysql is better solution then what datatype should I use(content can be simple text or html)?

Answer 1

If you need speed, you can use MySQL. You need to use either BLOB or if it is just text, use TEXT as the datatype. Use a good DB engine (MySQL, SQLite, etc). Then, for maximum performance, use memcached to cache content.

Keep in mind a couple things:

1. MySQL has a query cache. If you are issuing the same queries repeatedly, you can gain a lot of performance without adding a caching layer.
2. MySQL is really fast anyway. Have you load-tested to demonstrate it is not fast enough?

Another thing is, it is hard to search on flat files. If you use MySQL, not only it is faster, but also it is easier for you to search.