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Asked: 2026-05-19T04:27:04+00:00

Possible Duplicate: Storing Images in DB – Yea or Nay? I need to store

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Possible Duplicate:
Storing Images in DB – Yea or Nay?

I need to store profile pictures. Lots of them.

I’m not sure if I should store them in the database. I’m not even sure if that’s a good idea to begin with, or if I should just store them in a separate directory on the server, and disallow access to them with HTAccess.

But I’m not overly familiar with HTAccess and when I have used snippets to disallow access to a folder, it has just never worked.

I am using winhost.com to host my sites, so I would assume that HTAccess would work.

Can anyone suggest which way would be better for storing tens of thousands of profile pictures on a single server? I have read many blogs, forum posts etc that I’ve found on Google, and am a little bit more confused since half of them suggest one thing, and the other half disagree and suggest using a database would be perfectly fine.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    There is a trade off – it will depend on your exact situation and needs. The benefits of each include

    Filesystem

    • Performance, especially caching and I/O

    Database

    • Easier to scale out to multiple web servers
    • Easier to administer (backup, security etc)

    I’m guessing that you are using MySQL, but on the off chance that you have a SQL 2008 DB, have a look at FileStream in this SO article – this gives the best of both worlds.

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