Our office is considering acquiring LiDAR and high resolution Oblique imagery for a few project areas around the state (1-2 TB worth). I am not familiar with the best practice for storing Raster, LASS or ASCII files or their raster bi-products (terrians, DE, contours). A colleague of mine mentioned that it is suicidal to store Raster data, let alone LiDAR, on my SDE and suggested that we purchase an image server. Currently our GIS shop dose not do large volumes of Raster analysis but we may be headed in that direction if the LiDAR is well received. So in order to purchase an image server I will need compelling evidence that it will provide the best possible solution for our minimal needs.
Can anyone give me some best practice advise for storing Raster/LiDAR on an image server vs SDE vs FGDB?
Many thanks!