Remote Blob Storage (RBS) in SharePoint 2010

In this article, we will know about a new feature in SharePoint 2010 which allows the remote storage in SharePoint.

What is Remote BLOB Storage?
     Ø  BLOB – Binary Large Object

Ø  Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) is a library API set that is incorporated as an add-on feature pack for Microsoft SQL Server.

Ø  It can be run on servers with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2 Express. To run RBS on a remote server, you must be running SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise edition.

Ø  RBS is not supported for Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Ø  In Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, RBS can be used for content databases only.

Why RBS?

It provides the following benefits:

Ø  BLOB data can be stored on less expensive storage devices that are configured to handle simple storage.

Ø  The administration of the BLOB storage is controlled by a system that is designed specifically to work with BLOB data.

Ø  Database server resources are freed for database operations.

When to Go for RBS?

Ø  Large Database of Mostly Binary Data

Ø  Digital Asset Management Databases

Ø  When Storage Tiers Need to be Implemented

Ø  When Storage Needs to be Optimized

You can expect to benefit from RBS in the following cases:

Ø  The content databases are larger than 500 gigabytes (GB).

Ø  The BLOB data files are larger than 256 kilobytes (KB).

Ø  The BLOB data files are at least 80 KB and the database server is a performance bottleneck. Then, RBS reduces the both the I/O and processing load on the database server.

RBS Advantages over EBS (External Blob Storage)

Hope this explains about the basics of RBS in SharePoint 2010.

I came across a good article explaining about Configuring Remote Blob Storage for SharePoint 2010. Here is the link.

Happy Sharing!