To BLOB Or Not To BLOB

A while ago it was being held that the Postgres large object data type
was too new and not sufficiently tested and mature to be used in a
production environment. I am about to deploy a little database that
involves storing large-ish text files (20-500k) which could be either done
as large objects or as pointers to those files that would be then stored
as ordinary files in the OS's filesystem. I am undecided as to this
question. What are the pros and cons? What is the performance in either
case vis-a-vis the other? It is a web app; the interface is done in PHP.
Beginning from which version is the large object interface (if at all)
to be considered stable and ready for production?

cheers frank

--
frank joerdens

joerdens new media
heinrich-roller str. 16/17
10405 berlin
germany

e: frank@joerdens.de
t: +49 30 44055471
f: +49 30 44055475
h: http://www.joerdens.de

pgp public key: http://www.joerdens.de/pgp/frank_joerdens.asc