Ok, i have it working with a "nicer" solution. I don't wanted to change my complete data structure and i don't think storing all byte[]'s in another bean is a good solution. The @Basic(fetch=FetchType.LAZY) is working correctly with hibernate, but only if you use bytecode instrumantation as described here: http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html_single/#performanc... this is very important if you use lots of or lagre byte[]'s. hope this helps someone else getting the same problem. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4107990#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...