Storing images in SQL database?

[Andrew McCall]

Hi Folks,

I am about to start on a project where I will need to store a large
amount of images and details about images. SQL seemed a natural
choice for this, but I was a little unsure about how to store the
image itself.

From reading around I have found that there are two techniques that
people normally chose for this sort of work:

1) To store everything about the image within the SQL database, and
the image itself on a file system. A link to the image in the file
system is also stored within the SQL database.

2) To store the everything, including the image within the database.

I was wondering what people thought about these two techniques, and
which they would use. Ideally I would like to store everything within
the database as this seems a tidy solution, but I have read that this
may not be the best way to go.

Thanks,

Andrew McCall

[Chris Hope]

Andrew McCall wrote:

I am about to start on a project where I will need to store a large
amount of images and details about images. SQL seemed a natural
choice for this, but I was a little unsure about how to store the
image itself.

From reading around I have found that there are two techniques that
people normally chose for this sort of work:

1) To store everything about the image within the SQL database, and
the image itself on a file system. A link to the image in the file
system is also stored within the SQL database.

2) To store the everything, including the image within the database.

I was wondering what people thought about these two techniques, and
which they would use. Ideally I would like to store everything within
the database as this seems a tidy solution, but I have read that this
may not be the best way to go.

(1) is a much better option, otherwise you end up with a massively inflated
database and you create a lot of time overhead (as well as additional
server load) in pulling the images out of the database. I personally would
never store images in a database.

--
Chris Hope - The Electric Toolbox - http://www.electrictoolbox.com/