I am implementing SharePoint 2016 in my Company. I have few questions that I googled to get answers but unfortunately couldn't find helpful answers.
Q1. Which scenario is best?
Q2. Which database scenario is best?
(a) Content Databases with default setting
(b) Content Databases with FILESTREAM enabled RBLOB settings
I would try to dodge the first scenario, the more web applications you have the more memory it will consume and will also increase the processing needs for the farm, your hardware will feel the pain in terms of requirements.
You really need to consider all the reasons to split into multiple web apps instead of one or two, in your case seems pretty good two web apps, one for Enterprise Search (which I would always make separate from my business applications) and the other one for the business.
The second question is why do you need to use RBS? I love what RBSes can do for your SP farm but you would use them if you are aiming for web apps making heavy or constant usage of BLOBS, so let's assume you have ONE or TWO blob fields and they are rarely filled by users, the answer would be NO RBS, on the other hand you will have BLOB fields constantly updated/fed by users, then the answer is YES to RBS, it will save you space and increase performance on your SP Farm.
As per my understanding Scenario 1 is the best approach to deal with multiple tire environment, as it give more flexibility, easy maintainability without any overheads. It help to easily find out where is the fault if any.
Choose Content Database with Filestream enabled RBLOB setting if you do not have the below points
RBS has specific content database size limits for specific scenarios.
Encryption is not supported on BLOBs, even if Transparent Data Encryption is enabled.
The above guidelines are based on Microsoft.
