[erlang-questions] Performance difference between string and binary data when queried in mnesia?

[Brian Smith]

I have a table to have >1.5 million records in it.

-record(hosts, {hostname,  flags, catmask}).
application:start(mnesia).
mnesia:create_table(hosts, [{ram_copies, [node()]}, {attributes, 
record_info(fields, hosts)}]).

mnesia:dirty_select(hosts, [{#hosts{hostname='$1', _='_'}, [{'=<', '$1', 
SearchParam}], ['$_']}]).

Is there any significant performance difference between: SearchTerm = 
"facebook.com", and SearchTerm = <<8,"facebook", 3, "com", 0>>, ?

Thanks and egger to hear some responses...

-- 
-brian