Database vs File system storage
A database is generally used for storing related, structured data, with well defined data formats, in an efficient manner for insert, update and/or retrieval (depending on application).
On the other hand, a file system is a more unstructured data store for storing arbitrary, probably unrelated data. The file system is more general, and databases are built on top of the general data storage services provided by file systems. [Quora]
The file system is useful if you are looking for a particular file, as operating systems maintain a sort of index. However, the contents of a txt file won't be indexed, which is one of the main advantages of a database.
For very complex operations, the filesystem is likely to be very slow.
Main RDBMS advantages:
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Tables are related to each other
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SQL query/data processing language
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Transaction processing addition to SQL (Transact-SQL)
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Server-client implementation with server-side objects like stored procedures, functions, triggers, views, etc.
Advantage of the File System over Data base Management System is:
When handling small data sets with arbitrary, probably unrelated data, file is more efficient than database. For simple operations, read, write, file operations are faster and simple.
You can find n number of difference over internet.
Something one should be aware of is that Unix has what is called an inode limit. If you are storing millions of records then this can be a serious problem. You should run df -i to view the % used as effectively this is a filesystem file limit - EVEN IF you have plenty of disk space.
The difference between file processing system and database management system is as follow:
A file processing system is a collection of programs that store and manage files in computer hard-disk. On the other hand, A database management system is collection of programs that enables to create and maintain a database.
File processing system has more data redundancy, less data redundancy in dbms.
- File processing system provides less flexibility in accessing data, whereas dbms has more flexibility in accessing data.
- File processing system does not provide data consistency, whereas dbms provides data consistency through normalization.
- File processing system is less complex, whereas dbms is more complex.