Question

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Storing Images in DB – Yea or Nay?
Images in database vs file system

I’ve been developing a web application using RIA technologies (Flex + PHP + MySQL + Ajax) and now I’m in a dilemma about image files.

I use some images in my Flex app, so I think “it could be awesome if I store them into database, and then retrieve from it; consecuently, maintain process should be more easy”. But, here is my dilemma:

Should I store the physical URL of my images, or is going to be better if I store directly the image?

For example, should my Cars table looks like:

ID (autonumeric) | Source (text)

or like this?

ID (autonumeric) | Image (longblob or blob)

I know that here are cool people that can answer me this question, explaining me which is better and why 🙂

Answer 1

I personally recommend to Store Images in the database. Of course it both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of storing BLOB data in the database:

• It is easier to keep the BLOB data synchronized with the remaining items in the row.
• BLOB data is backed up with the database. Having a single storage system can ease administration.
• BLOB data can be accessed through XML support in MySQL, which can return a base 64–encoded representation of the data in the XML stream.
• MySQL Full Text Search (FTS) operations can be performed against columns that contain fixed or variable-length character (including Unicode) data. You can also perform FTS operations against formatted text-based data contained within image fields—for example, Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel documents.

Disadvantages of Storing BLOB Data in the Database:

Carefully consider what resources might be better stored on the file system rather than in a database. Good examples are images that are typically referenced via HTTP HREF. This is because:

• Retrieving an image from a database incurs significant overhead compared to using the file system.
• Disk storage on database SANs is typically more expensive than storage on disks used in Web server farms.