What's most efficient??

Anon

I need to upload some pics from a php script interface, and have the choice of either storing them as files in a folder or binary directly into a database. I wonder what method will be most efficient when fetching these pics back into a webpage?
I run a MySQL database, so how would it handle it if there is ALOT of hits on the pages, fetching pictures all the time?

Anon

I would have to say store the pics outside the db. Only real advantage of storing them in the DB I can see would be to slightly simplify any manipulation of the pics themselves. Simply put, if a user requests a pic, instead of making a call to the DB the web server simply grabs the static file off the HD. Seems much more efficient to me.

I don't have any hard facts to back this up, but it would seem common sense eliminating the need to make a call to the DB, and just going straight to the file.

Anon

But for a large number of pictures, the location would be stored in db, so have to visit the db.

If so, storing them as files in a folder or binary directly into a database, which is better?

Anon

I still think store them as files. A common setup at medium sized sites seems to be multiple web servers, and a single db server, so you need to make sure your DB is doing the least possible amount of work. Reading files off the HD as compared to digging them out the DB I would assume would be much more efficient. Why? Simply your eliminating a step of going through the DB and straight to the files. Again, I have no hard proof on this, but it seems like reasonable common sense? Shortest path to the files would be directly to them on the HD.

Anon

Store as files, definitely. Come up with a logical naming scheme like yyyy/mm/dd/hh/00000001.jpg or something like that.

Then serve them live with a content-type: image/jpeg header in a php script checking for session security or something. Keeps bots from walking the image tree.