Where to put an embedded database in an AspNet Core application

Question

I have lately re-discovered embedded databases such as Sqlite (sql, relational) and LiteDb (noSql) and I like working with them for small web apps or mobile apps.

However, I cannot find any good answer to where to place them. Where to put them if:

• The web app is likely to be containerized
• The database can grow dynamically
• Changes to the code and new deployments should not risk losing any change in database

1. Database file as part of solution (versioned in source control)

I've seen places where the *.db file is placed somewhere in the solution and it's versioned in source control. I can see how this could be a problem as the database can be modified outside the context of development (i.e: when the app is up and running in production, the DB may change and in the next deployment the db may be overwritten if no backup/restore process in place)

Sometimes I have seen it inside wwwroot/App_Data. See this for instance. I assume App_Data is some kind of protected folder and its files cannot be server statically by the web server (is it?). Otherwise this is even worse.

2. Database file in binary folder When testing, it's fine to have the database file generated somewhere in the bin folder, but this causes a similar problem as the previous one. What happens when a new software version is released and therefore the database file is overwritten in production?

So the questions are:

• Is there any good practice regarding where to place embedded database files?
• Is there any alternative to having backup/restore processes to avoid the described data-loss scenarios?
• What happens when the app is contenierized and the database file grows once deployed? If the file is inside a container along with the running application, can it grow indefinitely? I don't recall specifying anything about a maximum size for containers anywhere when creating images..
• Is having the DB in an external storage such a cloud blob store the alternative? I'm guessing the real benefit of embedded databases is gone if the file is in a different host.

Any good read about this would be appreciated.

PS: I am asking for AspNet Core apps mainly because I see some projects using the wwwroot folder to place the embedded DB, but the question applies to any technology/framework.

This other question doesn't help either.