File System vs DBMS

Advantage Comparison

Data concurrency – 

Imagine a banking transaction, where your bank balance is 1000Rs and you try to take out 900Rs. cash from two different ATMs at the same time. In such cases the ATM will check that your current balance is sufficient and allows transaction. But, you’re able to withdraw 1800 cash right as both transactions were done at the same time. This called concurrency.

There is a need of a locking mechanism which makes sure that these situations don’t arrive. In File systems we don’t have such system to manage such situations. However, modern DBMS systems by default provide inbuilt concurrency handling systems.

Data Searching –

It is very easy in DBMS systems, which have most of the highly efficient search operations inbuilt. User only needs to write a one line query to get the results. However, in file systems, you need to write your own long code for various search operations.

Data Integrity –

When a data is being inserted in the database there maybe cases when, we need only a particular type of data being entered. Like RollNo should only accept int values. Such constraints are there in DBMS systems but not in File systems.

Data Sharing –

Data sharing and access rights are easy and inbuilt in the DBMS system. But in file systems its too complex.

Data Redundancy and Inconsistency –

Imagine Amazon.com having two different tables for users and product purchase, with both having email ID as one data. Now, the user may change his/her email ID. Now, this may only reflect in user table, but not in the product table. Which may cause data inconsistency in file sharing systems. This is handled really well in DBMS system because of its inter-dependent relationship in nature.

Tabular Format

Data stored in DBMS systems mostly is in tabular format . However, in file systems its generally not the case.