Question

I have a SQL Server 2008 database with a table that contains a FILESTREAM varbinary(max) column. I have set up the database server to use file streaming and everything works well. I have also created a client application using C# + Entity Framework 4.1 (Visual Studio 2010)—this too works well and I can read and write to the varbinary(max) column without any difficulty. My problem is this: for very large files it can take a while to upload/download the file data from the database. Is there a way that I can determine how much progress has been made and notify the user?

Thanks!

Answer 1

No because EF doesn’t support filestream. Once you mapped it as varbinary(max) it is accessed in exactly same way as any other varbinary column and must be completely fetched. If you want to take advantage of advanced filestream features you must use native SQL through ADO.NET.