i'm working on a web-platform which analyzes GPX-Tracks and draws some profiles, speed stuff, etc. Currently i just calculate the statistics once (like distance, avg speed, duration, height gain/loose) and keep the GPX-File. The Profile is drawn once and stored on disk.

But currently i want to update this to a Javascript based Graph-Library to choose what kind of graph you want to plot. For this to work i need to access the trkpt's of the GPX-File over and over again and started to think abut putting the points into the Database to access them easier.

The question i'm asking myself now is, does it make sense to me to switch over to PostgreSQL and use postgis or will i just stay at mysql and join the stuff in as i was teached in the normalization-class? ;)

Are there any other benefits of postgis beside calculating distances and stuff? Because the only situation i calculate the distances between lon/lat-Points is once someone uploads a new file. Afterwards i only want to access the points (coordinates, times, speeds and elevations) on a easy way?

Thanks,
Sven