I am planning the development of a photo gallery application for a client. I am developing the app in asp.net 3.5 and would like to develop it so that I can re-use the application across multiple platforms using various front-ends. Basically, I am wondering what are the dis-advantages and advantages of storing images in the database as binary files as opposed to simply storing the files in an application folder.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Tristan
The disadvantage of storing as binary is that you blow the database size to incredible sizes. If you were to use an express edition of SQL Server, which is limited to 4GB per database, you photo gallery would “finish” quite soon.
The advantage is that you can easily manipulate the access restrictions per file and per user. You just look at user rights and decide whether you serve back the image or not.