Why use a file geodatabase

[DerekBernard]

When I have data I want retained, is there a reason to keep it stored in a file geodatabase vs our Enterprise geodatabase? For example, when there is a Demo of a house in our city we delete the address point.  My predecessor wanted to keep record of those deletes so he created a file geodatabase to recreate the address point in the "Deleted" database and removed the actual address point from the Enterprise db.  Wouldn't it be better to have that "Deleted" feature in our Enterprise Database or better yet, just extend the Address Point feature to have a Deleted column?  I'm very new to GIS and trying to understand what was done before I got here.

[George_Thompson]

There are pros / cons to both ways. I would say that file geodatabase (fGDB) is not a bad way for storing that data for archive. The bigger thing would be related to the data security, if this is being discussed for the archived data I would lean towards the Enterprise Geodatabase (EGDB).

I can also say that many DBA's do not like to store data in the EGDB that is not being used, as it "cost" more to house it in the RDBMS and maintain.

I will be interested to hear others thoughts...... 

[MobiusSnake]

If you want to track history, Enterprise GDBs have functionality called Archiving which lets you roll back to view historical snapshots, you can enable this on specific feature classes or tables that you want to maintain history for.

[SteveCole]

Another potential factor could be the license level that is available within your organization. You cannot edit an enterprise SDE feature class with a basic ArcGIS license level.

[VinceAngelo]

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@SteveCole wrote:

 You cannot edit an enterprise SDE feature class with a basic ArcGIS license level.

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This is not completely true. There are a number of ways to access/maintain  tables and rows in an EGDB that don't require a Standard or Advanced license (for example, a Portal survey could start data upload, without even a Basic license).

And with Standard/Advanced, you can do a number  of tasks in a PostgreSQL database without enabling it as an enterprise geodatabase.

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