I run a site which has a couple of million photos and gets over 1000 photos uploaded each day. Up to now, we haven't kept the original file that was uploaded to conserve on space. However, we are getting to a point that we are starting to see a need to have high-res original versions. I was wondering if its better to store these in the filesystem as an actual file or if its better to store them in a database (ie: mysql). The highres images would be rarely referenced but may be used when someone decides to download it or we decide to use it for rare processes like making a new set of thumbnails sizes/etc.
High-Resolution Photos – Store in Database or as Files?
image manipulationMySQLstorage
Best Answer
Yep, as everyone has noted, store the large images in a filesystem (and possibly thumbnails as well). You can hash or UUID them or something to get a reasonable location/unique name, then you can store this (as well as the matching thumbnail or other resolutions if required) location in the database. Then the DB does the search/match/join work for you, and the filesystem does what it's good at: storing files.