1. BruceTuncertan@SierraSystems.com
Storing and Managing
Your SharePoint Content
RBS, FILESTREAM, SHREDDED
STORAGE

2. /in/tuncertan
@tuncertan
Bruce Tuncertan
Principal, Solution Architect – SharePoint at Sierra Systems
Introduction
BruceTuncertan@SierraSystem
s.com
sharepointtidbits.blogspot.com
 Solution Architect specialized in Microsoft technologies specifically
SharePoint.
 Possesses over 20 year experience in the Information Technology and
working with SharePoint since 2006.
 Architected many technical solutions for public and private clients sized
from SMEs to large enterprises.
 Carries MCITP, MCTS certifications for SharePoint 2003, 2007 and 2010
as well as MCITP certification for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

3. Data (Structured and Unstructured)
SharePoint storage in brief
BLOBs (Binary Large OBjects)
Challenges of storing unstructured data in SQL
Server.
RBS (Remote BLOB Storage)
FILESTREAM
Benefits and disadvantages of RBS
Shredded Storage
3

4. Structured:
Organized in entities
Tied to a relationship with
attributes
Associated with a defined
schema
 Defined format
 Predefined length
Usually Small
Example:
 Contact Lists
 Calendar
 Task Lists

5. Unstructured:
Does not adhere to
specific format or
sequence
It is not tied to rules and
unpredictable
Examples:
 Pictures, Images
 Video
 Audio
 Text
 Word, PowerPoint, etc.
Most often large in size

6. Unstructured:
Does not adhere to
specific format or
sequence
It is not tied to rules and
unpredictable
Examples:
 Pictures, Images
 Video
 Audio
 Text
 Word, PowerPoint, etc.
Most often large in size
On average, in the enterprise
20% of the data is structured
and 80% is unstructured

7. By default SharePoint stores its data in
Microsoft SQL Server
Both structured and unstructured data is
stored in SQL tables
SharePoint data storage is built around the
file
 Document Libraries
 Record Centers

8. 8
• SharePoint Portal Server
2003
• Windows SharePoint Services
• SharePoint Server 2010 &
SharePoint Foundation 2010
• 200GB / 4TB
• External BLOB Storage
(EBS)
• Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)
• SharePoint Portal
Server (SPS)
• SharePoint Team
Services (STS)
• Office SharePoint 2007 &
Windows SharePoint Services
• 100GB / 1TB
• Backup Tools
• External BLOB Storage (EBS)
• SharePoint Server 2013 &
SharePoint Foundation 2013
• 200GB / 4TB
• Remote BLOB Storage
(RBS)
• Shredded Storage
2001
• File and Database
Storage
2003
• All SQL
Storage
2007
• SQL Storage
• EBS
2010
• SQL Storage
• RBS
2013
• SQL Storage
• Shredded
Storage

9. Microsoft TechNet:
In SharePoint, a binary large object (BLOB) is a
large block of data stored in a database that is
known by its size and location instead of by its
structure – for example a Office document or a video
file
By default, BLOBs are:
unstructured data
stored directly in the SP content db along with the
structured data
9

10. Cost
SQL storage is usually more expensive
Performance
SQL BLOBs bubble-up at the web front end.
Introduces a burden to SQL server performance due to its
large size
Compliance Requirements
Retention
Obsolescence

11. 11

12. By Externalizing BLOBs
EBS – External BLOB Storage
 Developed by SharePoint Team
 FARM Level
 Supported in SharePoint 2007 and 2010 but
deprecated in 2010
 Not supported in SharePoint 2013
RBS – Remote BLOB Storage
 Developed by SQL team
 Content db Level
 Introduced in SharePoint 2010
 Supported in SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013
12

13. RBS is designed to outline unstructured
(BLOB) as well as structured (metadata)
data
RBS provides flexibility to organizations to
deploy more efficient data storage
 RBS does not resolve the capacity challenges – The corpus size is
the sum of both structured and unstructured data regardless of their
location
RBS offers an upgrade path for
organizations

14. BLOB
Meta
data
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model

15. BLOB
Meta
data
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model
BLOB
Provider
BLOB
Storage RBS Maintainer

16. BLOB
Meta
data
SQL Server
Web Server
SP Object Model
BLOB
Provider
1
BLOB
Provider
2
BLOB
Provider
3
BLOB
Storage
1
BLOB
Storage
2
BLOB
Storage
3
RBS Maintainer

17. SQL BLOB
 Traditional method, storing BLOBs in SQL db
RBS-Remote
 SQL Server add-on
 Dedicated remote file store services (RBS Providers)
 Avepoint
 Metalogix
 NetApp
 Quest
RBS-FILESTREAM
 Another RBS provider
 SQL Server Feature
 Integrated File + Database
 Ideal for files > 1MB

19. Moves blobs from the SQL Database into the
file system.
It is still a unit of the database
Unstructured data stored directly in the file
system
It can help improve SQL Server performance
Size limit is the file system volume size

20. Throughput

21. Local
FILESTREAM
 Unstructured data is stored in a file
group and associated with the
content database on the same SQL
Server
 Supports integrated management,
i.e. backup and restore
Remote
FILESTREAM
 Unstructured data is stored in a file
group in a separate db or SQL
Server with related structured data
 Does not supports integrated
management
 Unstructured data managed
separately

22. Local FILESTREAM is really local
 DAS, NAS, SAN are all considered remote
 No support for compression and TDE
 Special limitations for mirroring and log shipping
3rd party ISV solutions require SQL
Server Enterprise Edition
NAS storage devices require 20ms
TTFB

23. Decreases storage costs
Optimizes SQL disk I/O via bypassing SQL
for BLOB operations
Transparent to end user
Increases BLOB transfer speed from/to the
SQL Server and the Client.
Moving a site becomes faster and more
efficient because it doesn’t move the site. It
moves the reference.

24. Backup & Restore
Management of additional infrastructure
Additional maintenance
Clustered environment still require shared
storage
Microsoft does not support SQL
Mirroring, db Snapshots and RBS on the
same db

25. Document Libraries are the main focus of your
SharePoint farm or a site collection.
Majority of those files (>70%) exceed 1MB
SharePoint content db housing these files is large in size
(~200GB)
Your DR tools are either RBS aware or you have process
intended to synchronize backups
You have highly skilled, SQL and Windows Server admins
that is trained or has the capacity to get trained in RBS
RBS is not supported at Office 365

26. Newly introduced at SharePoint 2013
Data platform improvement
Manages changes/edits to the large files
Improve the I/O
Reduces the compute utilization
Reduces SQL storage

27. When versions enabled – for every edit of the file, a brand
new version is created with the metadata in SQL Server.
1MB file with 10 versions = 10MB of SQL allocation.
Issues:
Large SQL database size
Increased I/O traffic due to
additional roundtrips to
SQL Server

28. It compares the document before saving.
Only saves the changed bits in the document.
1MB file with 10 versions 2.5MB of SQL allocation.
Files are split into parts and saved as individual rows.
Can be used in conjunction with RBS
By default it is turned ON

29. Pros
 SQL I/O is improved
 Size of the content db is reduced under certain scenarios
 Reduced SQL Server transaction logs
Cons
 All content is still stored in the SQL Server
 Cannot be disabled – other options?
29

33. Shredded Storage splits larger BLOBs into many small
BLOBs
RBS works best with larger BLOBs
What happens when we put them together?
Files recognized by SharePoint will get shredded regularly
and stored to the RBS depending on your RBS Threshold.
If SharePoint does not recognize the file it will get shredded
to 1MB blocks and will be stored in the RBS if it is enabled.
 RBS Threshold will be ignored.
In order to get the best of the both worlds
 Set RBS threshold to 1MB

34. Shredded Storage splits larger BLOBs into many small
BLOBs
RBS works best with larger BLOBs
What happens when we put them together?
Files recognized by SharePoint will get shredded regularly
and stored to the RBS depending on your RBS Threshold.
If SharePoint does not recognize the file it will get shredded
to 1MB blocks and will be stored in the RBS if it is enabled.
 RBS Threshold will be ignored.
In order to get the best of the both worlds
 Set RBS threshold to 1MB

35. Shredded Storage and RBS are
complimentary to one another
Shredded Storage is beneficial in core
collaborative cases with versioning is
enabled
Make sure you consider other factors
when developing a SharePoint storage
strategy
RBS provides benefits over and above
the Shredded Storage
Don’t forget Shredded Storage is here
to stay
36

36.  RBS Best Practices in SharePoint 2010 http://is.gd/0M432w
 SharePoint 2010 RBS Benefits/Trade-offs http://bit.ly/nezN93
 Introduction to Shredded Storage in SharePoint 2013
http://bit.ly/PQbSBK
 SharePoint 2013 Shredded Storage http://bit.ly/1gJwwkV
 Shredded Storage vs. RBS http://bit.ly/16q8LY5
 Plan for RBS in SharePoint 2013 http://bit.ly/17MkjSU
 The Impact of Shredded Storage on SharePoint 2013
http://bit.ly/1buWmEh

37. Q&A