Store strings in UTF-8/UNICODE format

Hi,
I need to store multibyte characters into my database (MaxDB). To my mind, 
there are two approaches:

1) Store everything in UTF-8 format in normal varchars. I don't know if MaxDB 
will have problems with this, probably there will be errors such as that the 
string length can be faulty.
2) Store everything in the 2-byte Unicode format - but this will nearly double 
the size of my database, moreover I don't know if I will have to convert 
every string from/to UTF-8 to/from Unicode.

What's the appropriate solution?

Best Regards,
Hermann

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