Well, you can close your eyes or just not read the blog, but you are about to start hearing me harp more and more about the Oracle11g SecureFiles feature. I’m about to start some high-end testing with an eye on the performance delta between storing unstructured data in Oracle Database 11g with the SecureFiles feature versus storing them in a traditional filesystem.
I was reading StorageMojo.com today where Robin was discussing the state of commodity filesystems and their (in)ability to properly deal with certain storage failures. The story seems even more grim than I was aware. I recommend you read the IRON paper and think about those LOBs. Oracle can do this stuff so much better.
Simply put, Oracle is not going to corrupt your data-structured or unstructured. Oracle offers features and options ranging from from block check summing to HARD and DataGuard and a myriad of other features and tools to help ensure that this claim is true.
It’s worth thinking about. Besides, if you put your unstructured data in the filesystem it is “owned” by the system administrators. If you use SecureFiles, it’s yours!
Worth thinking about?
Kevin Closson's Blog: Platforms, Databases and Storage 
Hi Kevin –
I’m looking into using SecureFiles with Multimedia in 11G. We’re trying to find a good platform to run it on and thinking about PolyServe with EVA storage.
Looking forward to reading the results on your testing you mentioned above, and seeing how SecureFiles compares to traditional file system in your eyes.