We have a class named Consumer:



The Consumer class contains a number of <set mappings, just like the one shown above. We use a web architecture where the Consumer is often detached (while in the view layer)and we add instances to the contained Sets (e.g adding a new consumerEpisode).

The question is as follows. In our arhitecture (uses transactional Service objects that calls DAOs) I can 1) call saveorupdate on the Consumer and relie on Hibernate finding the transient instances in the Set or 2) create methods to save the transient instances ( eg consumerEpisode) by itself. Is there a perfomance penalty to having Hibernate do this work(figuring out which instances in the set are transient and saving them) and if so how much of a penalty.

I have combed through the docs, but I'm still uncertain. Any insight will be much appreciated.