Glass can be a great option if you embark with the sand and plan to either get magma forges going, or have bit. coal/lignite. Embark sand is very cheap. Of course you can't win with glass if you're burning wood to make charcoal - you'd be better off with wood pots.
But I do like the glass industry, if it's a long way to the forges you can use minecarts as 'megabins' (that is, at the sand collection you put a stop, and at the forges you put a stop on a track stop set to dump, and just have the dwarves haul the minecart - because sand bags are surprisingly light you can save a lot of dwarf time that way).
One reason I like sand is I tend to be pretty minimalistic in my digging, I like compact fortresses. Those stones are all needed for blocks and mechanisms. Glass and wood can be used for basically everything else.
If you're luck enough to have fireclay you can make stoneware pots that don't require glazing to hold booze. Otherwise, the glazing requirements make stoneware a no-win for booze. But you can use unglazed low-grade clay stoneware to store food - you just have to be careful with the furniture stockpiles and put a stockpile only allowing quality material pots/barrels near the still, and a stockpile only allowing crap material pots near the food stockpiles. I've only done this once, but it did work well.
Sand requires a bag, clay doesn't but clay is extremely heavy meaning a dwarf effectively needs a wheelbarrow to move clay... basically sand is better in this regard if you embark with sand so get heaps of free bags, but clay works with smart wheelbarrow or minecart use, or if you bring magma to the clay, or clay to the magma.
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Topic: Large pots vs Barrels and materials (Read 700 times)