External Access API
We've got an interesting bit of news for you. When competing with most Doc Mgmt products a key requirement is external file storage (or storage on file system). SharePoint's key failing was that SQL is the default and only store. With the following article, we address this issue in SP1 rollup… and there are more hidden gems in that SP1 – help us find more relevant ones! – post on http://blogs.technet.com/Kailash
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938499/
INTRODUCTION
An external storage API is available for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The external storage API lets you store documents or files on an external storage device other than Microsoft SQL Server. This API also lets you upgrade existing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 sites to point to an external storage device.
And here's the article on MSDN: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb802976.aspx
