By default, if `NC_DB` is not specified upon [installation](/getting-started/self-hosted/installation/auto-install), then SQLite will be used to store metadata. We suggest users to separate the metadata and user data in different databases as pictured in our [architecture](/engineering/architecture).
By default, if `NC_DB` is not specified upon [installation](/getting-started/self-hosted/installation/auto-upstall), then SQLite will be used to store metadata. We suggest users to separate the metadata and user data in different databases as pictured in our [architecture](/engineering/architecture).