>>@All,
>>
>>We are investigating whether it would be possible to return a file somewhere that the SQL server service has access to by calling a stored procedure.
>>We do not want to store the file itself in the database, but we want to return and store the through simple calls through ODBC.
>>
>>Is there anything like that possible ? Wihtout using CLR ?
>>
>>Walter,
>
>If it is SQL server, then what is wrong with storing the files in the database (while physically they are separately on the disk)? You would then simply read/write them as a regular field. Check FILESTREAM attribute if file sizes are above 1 Mb.

It bloats the database. Since for many customers our databse is stored on high performance SQL server clusters where available diskspace is very expensive, many IT departments will not allow documents to be stored within the database. They reccommend using a PACS solution, but that is not feasible for every client.