What are the disadvantages of storing images on a file system?

I have a few questions about storing files on the operating system. These may or may not be valid worries, but I don't want to go on without knowing.

1. What will happen when the file it is stored in get a very large amount of data (1 Million images of up to 2MB each):开发者_StackOverflow Will this effect RAM and make the OS go slow?

2. What security risks does it open as far as Viruses?

3. Would scalability just be transfering files from that machine to a new machine?

The only problem will be if you try to store all of those images in a single directory.

Serving static files, you are liable to hit limits of the network before you hit the machine's limit.

In terms of security, you want to make sure that only images are uploaded, and not arbitrary files - check more than the file extension or mime-type!