Storing data on the file system and in the database weekens the data model. You can't impose a not null constraint for the file for example. Also the file system is not a transactional resource. If you create a record in the database pointing to a file and the file save stage fails you'll have to handle the rollback manually. Another thing is the file system is a difficult resource to access from a distributed environment - at the bare minimum you are probably going to have to introduce some OS specific access stuff (i.e. different UNC syntax) plus some admin overhead to maintina a share or how ever you implement this.
Also, whats the difference between blob and clob, other than one being binary? A difference in layman's terms.
A blob == Binary large object, i.e. any binary data. Clob == Character large object i.e. specifically character data.
[ May 09, 2007: Message edited by: Paul Sturrock ]