If your blobs are too big to fit in memory, perhaps you should consider storing them each in a separate file and then store just the filename in the database.
That assumes you have a filesystem :-) I too would like random access to strings and blobs (especially the latter). In many cases isn't about fitting into memory, but rather just minimizing memory consumption. For example if another component uses 64KB buffers, then it would be most convenient to access the blobs 64KB at a time. Roger