[postgis-users] Retrieving Data from PostGIS Raster using ST_Value

[Puneet Kishor]

On Oct 13, 2011, at 8:38 AM, elliott wrote:

> We would like to retrieve the data from a database instead of flat file thinking the performance would be better.


General rule, without any metrics backing it, but backed by experience -- a database will almost never be as fast as a flat file. Esp. a flat file that holds binary data whose structure you know, and that you can access by specific offsets, will be tremendously quicker than accessing the same data held in a db. A db has way too much overhead.

You use a db not for the performance gains but for the flexibility, standardization of access, and other things you can do with the data once they are in the db. Then you throw extra hardware, memory and tune the db to bring up its performance to an acceptable point, if required.

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Puneet Kishor