note BrowserUk <blockquote><i></i></blockquote> <p>Sounds like you're indexing your data by a hex-encoded digest? <p>Given that you have 3 variable & possible huge sized chunks -- which most RDBMSs handle by writing the filesystem anyway -- associated with each index key, and your selection criteria are both fixed & simple, I'd use the filesystem. <p>Subdivide the key into chunks that make individual directories contain at most a reasonable number of entries and then store the 3 sections in files at the deepest level. <P>By splitting a 32-byte hex digest into 4-char chunks, no directory has more than 256 entries. The file-system cache will cache the lower levels and the upper levels will be both fast to read from disk and quick to search. Especially if your file-system hashes its directory entries. <p>I'd write the individual chunks of the two text parts in separate files unless they will always be loaded as a single entity, in which case it might be slightly faster to concatenate them. <P>Overall, given a digest of <c>8fbe7eb8c04c744406cca0aeb67e4f7f</c>, I'd lay the directory structure out like this:<code> /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/meta.txt /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text1.000 /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text1.001 /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text1.002 /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text1.... /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text2.000 /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text2.001 /data/8fbe/7eb8/c04c/7444/06cc/a0ae/b67e/4f7f/text2.... </code> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-171588"> <hr /> <font size=1 > <div>With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'</div> <div>Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.</div> <div>"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". </div> <div>In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.</div> </font> </div></div> 932175 932183