"Keep the images in filesystem, store their path in db. Why bother to stuff it into blob, then unpack just to reference it as a file again?" That defeats the purpose, and that is what we currently are doing. The idea is that ALL information for a specific machine is in a single file that can travel with the machine. The devices are required to have an extensive testing and documentation log in accordance with ISO 9002 and regulations from the US government and other regulators in various countries. It has become untenable gathering all the data for one machine, let alone trying to find anything, like looking for trends over many machines. By everything being in one database file per machine it becomes easy to search and extract various data, along with being able to store a history of the machine.