Best way to store lots of data..

[deafeningsilence5]

I was thinking - what is the best way for me to store large amounts of text and such? For instance, I'm designing a portfolio website, and each user can write a bio and such, containing personal information. But what's the best way to store a large amount of text like that? Do I stick with a MySQL database?

[BlindToSound]

If there's going to be personal data, (by personal, I mean their full address, full name, phone number, etc), I would say hash it a few times with md5 and a salt, then upload it to a database. So yes, stick to a database, they're easier to work with.

[deafeningsilence5]

At 6/5/08 01:24 AM, BlindToSound wrote: If there's going to be personal data, (by personal, I mean their full address, full name, phone number, etc), I would say hash it a few times with md5 and a salt, then upload it to a database. So yes, stick to a database, they're easier to work with.

But how would I be able to retrieve the data when you've gone to someone's profile page?

My main question was if a database like MySQL is designed for LARGE amounts of data. But you bring up a significant point with md5.

[CronoMan]

At 6/5/08 02:25 AM, deafeningsilence5 wrote: But how would I be able to retrieve the data when you've gone to someone's profile page?

I don't know.. serverside code? :P

[BoneIdol]

At 6/5/08 02:25 AM, deafeningsilence5 wrote: My main question was if a database like MySQL is designed for LARGE amounts of data.

Yes. Just use Text for the attribute type instead of Varchar. If you need to store binary data use Blob.

[flaming-ace]

i have used large (well not that big, big enough though) amounts of text data in a sql database, and it seemed to work fine.

[BoneIdol]

Dammit forgot the link. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/s torage-requirements.html

Max size of Text is 65536 characters, MediumText is 16777216 characters and LongText is 4294967296 characters.

[deafeningsilence5]

At 6/5/08 04:42 AM, BoneIdol wrote: Dammit forgot the link. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/s torage-requirements.html

Max size of Text is 65536 characters, MediumText is 16777216 characters and LongText is 4294967296 characters.

That's great, seems like MySQL will work fine.

But personal data - if I encrypt it using a one way method like md5, I won't be able to retrieve it. What if I used a two way, but less secure method? Because I'm gonna need to access this info to display on the page each time a person wants to see the "profile".

[yhar]

At 6/5/08 03:00 PM, deafeningsilence5 wrote: But personal data - if I encrypt it using a one way method like md5, I won't be able to retrieve it. What if I used a two way, but less secure method? Because I'm gonna need to access this info to display on the page each time a person wants to see the "profile".

You only need to hash / secure data if it's not allowed to be seen by anybody in plain text form, such as passwords. Stuff like address etc, can simply be stored in plain text, just make sure it's secure in it's holdings, IE only admins can access it unless you're displaying it on pages etc.