Question: I was reading about external blob storage in SQL Server and was wondering how this relates to the database size. When talking SQL Server Express, you have a limit in database size (for 2008 it's 10GB I believe). So how about your ESB storage? Is that taken into account for this limit, or does it only count the actual `.mdf` file itself? Thinking about it, what about the `.ldf` log file? 

I was thinking about this related to SharePoint. Since the major part of a content database usually consists of larger blob objects (documents), it could be very cost effective to move those to ESB if that saves you fullsize SQL Server licenses.

**Update:** Posted about a possible savings option for SharePoint Foundation - SQL Express here: <http://blog.repsaj.nl/index.php/2012/09/sp2010-saving-yourself-a-full-sql-license/>

Answer: 
The 10gb size limit concerns the `.mdf` only - no limit on the `.ldf`.

Also, in SQL Server 2008 - the database size limit does **not** apply to data stored as `FILESTREAM` in your database (see [FILESTREAM compatibility](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895334.aspx): *SQL Server Express supports FILESTREAM. The 10-GB database size limit does not include the FILESTREAM data container*).
FILESTREAM size is [not accounted against the total 10Gb restriction size](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895334.aspx#SQLServerExpress).

> 
> SQL Server Express supports FILESTREAM. The 10-GB database size limit
>  does not include the FILESTREAM data container.
> 
> 
> 

But the [Remote Blob Store](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg316768%28v=sql.105%29.aspx) package has a dependency on SQL Agent jobs for things like garbage collection and orphan scan and SQL Express Edition does not have SQL Agent. It requires Enterprise Edition:

> 
> RBS requires SQL Server Enterprise for the main database server in
>  which the BLOB metadata is stored. However, if you use the supplied
>  FILESTREAM provider, you can store the BLOBs themselves on SQL Server
>  Standard.
> 
> 
>