Store millions of small images in Firebird blob fields

Question

I know you will say there are several duplicates for this question. I've read most of them. But I need an answer to the specific case I'm presenting.

I'm planning to store millions of small jpg images (about 3kb) in a Firebird database.

Assumptions:
- The table that will contain these images will not contain any other information but its key;
- It is not a web application;
- The images will never be updated;
- In most of the cases, the database will never grow to more than one digit GB;
- The server must be easy to be maintained, as there will be no DBA to take care of it.

Is it a good approach? Or should I consider save the images in the file system?

Please. I need an answer specific for non-web applications and for Firebird databases.

Answer 1

At a previous company we stored 155 million images at 32kb each in an Oracle 8 (then 9 and then later 10) database. This also had more information held about each image.

So I would think FireBird should be able to hold a million or so with out breaking too much sweat.

Answer 2

I would recommend storing in a filesystem - BUT, do one or more of the three things:

• Store them in a hierarchical directory structure (can't suggest details without knowing the context), so that there is no issue with reading large directories
• Store them in sets within archives (e.g. tar), possibly compressed - to save on file system wastage from storing small files
• Have a caching mechanism in your app.

Answer 3

The best approach is not to store the images in the dbase, but instead store them with the file system.

You can then use a image lookup table within your dbase, within which each record contains a relative or absolute path to the image files within the file system.

As a general rule it is very non-performant to hold to store images as blobs within a dbase.

Answer 4

I see one discussion about this in Firebird News

The question is : to blob or not to blob ?