As that happens, some databases caching and disk operations outperform those of the operating system... yes that's hard to believe.

Imagine you find out it's true. Would you now go for storing large binary thingies in the database if you are asked to deliver them quickest possible?

In the OP's case, we're looking at an HTTP server running on the same host, so any gain in image delivery is going to have to contend with disk seeks initiated by the HTTP server which is probably either forking or multithreaded and reliant upon the file system provided by the OS. Under any appreciable load, huge gains in the service of images will be very small gains in system performance -- tortoises have an optimally low coefficient of drag but they still don't go very fast. :)

If the server in question is on an ethernet (plain old 10Mbps) link, then the bottleneck is almost certain to be the network and just about any relatively recent/decent machine will be able to keep it swamped 24/7 without much optimization outside of the HTTP server itself. If it's on fast ethernet (100Mbps) or faster, then it's conceivable that the file system is the bottleneck -- but we're approaching the hardware limitations of most commonly deployed disk systems and cannot afford a lame operating system anyway.

I'd consider overcoming a lame OS by shifting the burden to the database server if:

  1. The file system implementation (not the hardware itself) is proven to be the content delivery bottleneck;
  2. The database server is significantly faster *and* is capable of supporting the greatest anticipated production load *with headroom* for the inevitable invocations of Murphy's Law;
  3. The task of image service cannot be offloaded to another host; and
  4. There is an insurmountable obstacle between the current reality and a more suitable solution, such as installing a free Linux OS to eliminate the lame OS.

Most often, the simpler solution is the best one. Unless/until benchmarking (in this case, from a remote host) proved that the performance of the system as a whole was lacking, I'd just let the HTTP server deal with file service, and do my best to get out of its way as quickly as possible.

In reply to Re^3: Mysql and Images by gloryhack
in thread Mysql and Images by Braindead_One

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