Just wanted to point out a detail that might be of interest to some:
when using base64_encode to store binary data in a database, you are increasing the size of the data by 1.33 times. There is a nicer way of storing the data directly. Try the following:
<?php $data = mysql_real_escape_string($data); ?>
This will leave the data untouched and formatted in the correct way and ready to be inserted right into a MySQL statement without wasting space.
By the way, I'd like to thank therebechips for his excellent advice on data chunks.
