SQLite + Core Data Vs. File system on Iphone App that shows photos. What's more performant?

Question

Hello, I have an application where the user will navigate around a set of photographs. What's best in terms of performance for this scenario, SQLite + Core DATA for persisting the photos as NSData objects or having the photos as png files directly on the file system?

thanks.

Answer 1

It really depends on the size of images. I would certainly put small things (like thumbnails) right in the DB. If your images are large you will either want to put them into separate files, or be very careful that those columns are not faulted in unless you actually need them.

With CoreData you can just use a computed property to load and save the external file.