Database Storage PROBLEM

Question

We are building mostly read only Real estate web site.
We have 300.000 and more pictures(50 kb) what users will see from their browers.
We have a problem storing those images.The speed is the major concern in our application.
1.Put them into the database we are using as BLOB...etc .
2.Seperate the images table to another database record images to that database.
3.Use the filesytem.
What is the best way of storing and retreving images for a highly concurrent read only web application?
Message was edited by:
LEALRLRIYSON

Answer 1

I see file system gets locked when ı have put 300.000 images to the same folderAs a rule of thumb I get nervous when a single folder has more than 30,000 files in it. If that sounds like it might be related to one of the magic numbers (32k) that's because it is. In Unix each node (directory, folder) has slots for 32k file descriptors (handles). More than that in a node and the system has to move into extended file management routines, which are painfully slow. Windows is probably similar although may the magic number may be different.
So, if you want to use the file system then you probably need to split your one folder into at teh very least one level of sub directory. If you have file names that feature a uniquley identifying number then the solution is easy. Have one hundred sub-directories named 00 through 99 and apportion files on the basis of the last two digits: all the files named nnnnn00.jpg go into subsdirectory ./00, all the files named nnnnn01.jpg go into subsdirectory ./01, etc.
However, there is quite an overhead in managing the pictures separately from the rest of the data. You should benchmark each approach carfeully to ascertain teh value of teh trade-off. You might also want to consider the value of thumbnail pics: if people have clicked on a pictre because they want to see something bigger then they are more inclined to put up with some waiting time.
The other thing to check is where your bottleneck is: it is less likely that the problem is hauling a 50k blob from your database than it is downloading the thing across http to the browser.
Cheers, APC
Cheers, APC