Deprecated Content Delivery storage on the file system

It is no longer possible to publish content without using a database. Publishing content to the local file system, instead of to a database, is a deprecated feature that is only available for some item types, and that disables you from using a large number of microservices and associated product features.

Overview

Content storage on the file system is available only for a limited amount of item types --specifically, those item types that existed when SDL Tridion 2013 was released. Any item types that were introduced later cannot be stored in the file system. And because it is impossible to publish content without publishing these new item types, it follows that you must always have database storage configured alongside your file system.

On top of that, storing content in the local file system (that is, the hard disk of a presentation server or a network-accessible hard disk) severely restricts the functionality of SDL Tridion Sites in many ways. Many Content Delivery microservices cannot work with content stored in the local file system.

The only scenario in which you can continue to use local file system storage is if you are upgrading an existing implementation and are continuing to use deprecated features.

Microservices

The following are the only microservices that can work with items stored in the local file system (and only in a limited way):
  • Content Deployer (only if working with the item types listed below)
  • Content Service (with limitations listed below, and only if using the Content Interaction Libraries or the deprecated in-process API)
  • Session-enabled Content Service (with limitations listed below, and only if using the Content Interaction Libraries or the deprecated in-process API)

Item types

The following are the only item types that you can store in the local file system:
  • Pages
  • Component Presentations
  • Binaries
  • Binary variants
  • XSLT Templates
  • References

Limitations

If you use the (Session-enabled) Content Service with Pages and Component Presentations stored in the file system, you can't use the following product features of the service:
  • You can't query or filter the items stored on the file system, which means you can't create a dynamic, query-based website.
  • You can't create dynamic intelligent navigation for your website

These features would otherwise be available if you use the service in combination with the Content Interaction Libraries.