scalable layout for storing and displaying user uploaded images

Question

I am trying to figure out the best way to layout my directory structure so that I can store images from multiple users in a way that would be scalable when used in combination with a database. The database will store the absolute path to each image.

So lets assume I was dealing with users' profile images each of which would have thumbnails of a different size. Would the structure below be sufficient:

/profile_images
    /user_1
      /image_a
        image_a.jpg
        image_a_small.jpg
        image_a_tiny.jpg
      /image_b
        image_b.jpg
        image_b_small.jpg
        image_b_tiny.jpg
    /user_2
        ...
    /user_3
        ...

So my question is whether such an approach would be good. If not, could someone please suggest a better approach that uses a database and filesystem to manage image uploads. Thanks

Answer 1

Your layout seems sufficient for an application that is expecting moderate number of users and images.

That said, the solution may prove insufficient once the following factors come into play:

1. The number of user-image combinations grows large.
2. Your users are spread across the globe.
3. You need to version the images.
4. You find that a lot of bandwidth is being spent on hosting the images.

In such a case you might want to look at storing and serving these images outside using something simple as Amazon S3 or using a full fledged content delivery network (CDN).

I believe there are several plug ins available to support S3 storage with minimal fuss. S3Storage is one such (caveat: I have used S3 but not S3Storage).

Hope this helps.