Storing Binary Data vs. Linking

drewhealey

Here is the task at hand. I am using MySQL 4 w/ PHP 4 on an IIS box. On the front page of our intranet, I would like to have a section that contains random pictures every time the page is reloaded. These pictures are for each of our products and there are roughly 20 images per product (10 products). With each picture, I need to have a 500 char max caption, some alt text and a link to the product.

Pretty simple so far but I would like my users to be able to upload images and captions when a new picture needs to be posted.

My question is should I upload the images into the MySQL dB or should I upload to the proper directory and then create a link to that file? I have read contradicting stories about each method. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Drew

stolzyboy

storing binary in the file directory is faster AND less server intense, use a link and store the file in the filesystem, not the BLOB in the MySQL DB

superwormy

The MySQL manual reccomends AGAINST storing images in MySQL. Of course, you don't need to take their word for it :-)

Either would likely suit you, BUT you'll be connecting to MySQL a lot more times if you store images in teh database, and Apache has much better image caching and direct throughput than an image coming out of MySQL will.

On the other hand, its probably easier to write a script to store an image in the database ( IMHO ) , and you won't have to worry about file and folder permissions and all that stuff.

drewhealey

Thank you for your help. I figured the raw file system would be the best way to go about this, I just thought I would check with the experts. Now I am off to learn enough PHP so that I may make something of myself.