Storing blobs in database vs filesystem

I have a document processing system on Oracle 10.2 Linux. It stores document as blob in the database. We store 1 Million docs a month and current table size is 5 million. Database size is 50 GB out of which blob table takes 35 GB. (It is not partitioned).

We are facing administrative issues with the size. E.g we had to move to 64 bit system from 32 bit using export import. It took a while to finish. Doing a export import for development/test databases is getting cumbersome.

I am considering moving blobs to filesystem. This will reduce the database size by 70%, reduce backup time, export/import time.

What could be challenge in storing it on file system? Any major disadvantage that I should not consider it at all?

Thanks

Sandeep

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