should images come from db or content\Images folder

I am developing a eCommerce website in ASP.NET MVC 3 in C#. Usin开发者_运维知识库g SQL Server 2008R2. My question is if I have 5 images that I want to show in gridView with thumbnails (e.g. something like Amazon website that gives customers couple of pictures to show) would it be advisory if the images are coming from the database or should I reside in the Content\Images folder? There are quite a few sub-categories in sub-category in my db design. What is the most common suit for a professional developer to follow? Thanks. I know there are few options for third party tools like jquery & Telerik Extensions. So I will use them.

Thanks

From my experience and research it is better to put it in a folder/content structure. Yes, there are security things with opening directories to the public but if you instead upload a file via ftp dynamically the problems are solved. I have heard of horror stories about storing files in database and have seen the issues come up but have resolved them. Basically, it is easier to write to database and there are not the security issues of opening up a directory to public but just make sure to regularly check backups that the files are not corrupt or make sure the data is on a fail over cluster where that will never be a problem.

So summary: Database is fine just regularly check backups by restoring them that they are not corrupt or run as a fail over cluster. Otherwise just go with the typical folder/content structure but use ftp to upload the file so there are no open directories to the public.

For me, the best anwser to this question is this: To BLOB or Not To BLOB: Large Object Storage in a Database or a Filesystem

Sumary: Application designers often face the question of whether to store large objects in a filesystem or in a database. Often this decision is made for application design simplicity. Sometimes, performance measurements are also used. This paper looks at the question of fragmentation – one of the operational issues that can affect the performance and/or manageability of the system as deployed long term. As expected from the common wisdom, objects smaller than 256K are best stored in a database while objects larger than 1M are best stored in the filesystem. Between 256K and 1M, the read:write ratio and rate of object overwrite or replacement are important factors. We used the notion of “storage age” or number of object overwrites as way of normalizing wall clock time. Storage age allows our results or similar such results to be applied across a number of read:write ratios and object replacement rates.