Putting files into fields in a table

PostgreSQL: 8.2

I am looking at the possibility of storing files in some of my database
tables. My concern is obviously performance. I have configured
PostgreSQL to take advantage of Linux file caching. So my PostgreSQL
does not have a large setting for shared_buffers even though I have 24G
of memory. The performance today is very good.

Some questions I have:

What data type should I use for fields that hold files?

Is there anything that I should be aware of when putting files into a
field in a table?

When PostgreSQL accesses a table that has fields that contain files does
it put the fields that contain the files into the shared_buffers memory
area?

Thanks,

Lance Campbell

Project Manager/Software Architect

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