Re: not really SQL but I need info on BLOBs

Now of corse it depends on the application that you are making, where you
put the files.
In my situation it is not so complicated, because we're not working on the
images, so from this point of view they are "readonly". Out clients that are
asking for photos have webaccess to a folder where we put the the photos and
we just give the right link, or they receive the photos in pdf documents.

I have the images on the same server as the database, so this is not a
problem to access them. But also if you have to make a mount on other system
I see no problem to this. Only if you will have to write the image file
back, then you will have to give write access to that file. In our situation
the image files are "web accessed" so there is NO way that we give write
access to that folder(I mean for the clients).

Now honestly the size of the DB makes me to worry at the point when you put
the images in the database. You cannot make simple dumps. I have at the
moment 12 GB of photos and the backup script for these takes quite some
time.

Now there is another risk when you put the photos on the disk... there is
the possibility that you have the link in the DB but you don't have the
photo, or the file is corrupted. This can happen.

It is up to you to decide. I don't know if there are also some performance
losses or not, but from what I can imagine to read an image from DB takes
more time as to read it from a file.

I know a lot of people that are storing the images on disk and not in the
database. If you store the images in the DB the handling becomes more
complicated. You will have always have to read the image and create a
temporary file in order to work with it. In file cases you just copy it. I
think it is more flexible the storage on the disk.

But... search the forums, or hope that somedoby else answers also.

Best regards,
Andy.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Theodore Petrosky" <tedpet5(at)yahoo(dot)com>
To: "Andrei Bintintan" <klodoma(at)ar-sd(dot)net>; <pgsql-sql(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [SQL] not really SQL but I need info on BLOBs

> Thanks for the reply. Are there (in your opinion)
> reasons why you would choose to store the images in
> the db? My feelings are that it comes down to access.
>
> If I store the images in the db, my only access to
> these images is to retrieve the image do some work on
> it and reupload it. If I store the image as a file and
> link to it, I can edit the image to my hearts content
> by mounting the volume and opening it in an image
> editor and saving. there is nothing more to do.
>
> archiving and backups are easier also. my tape system
> talks to my server and backs up the images. I believe
> it would be easier to recover from a problem.
>
> in your solution, how do you retrieve your image? do
> you need to mount the volume where the images live? I
> guess I am asking "If your user/client queries the db
> for an image, they may want to view it? How do you
> send them the data?"
>
> I am working on a project where the IT department is
> pushing really hard to have all the images in the db.
> I don't know what the agenda is. I am hopeful to come
> up with reasons either why this is good or not good.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ted
>
> --- Andrei Bintintan <klodoma(at)ar-sd(dot)net> wrote:
> > I suggest to store the images on the disc and write
> > in the db only the path.
> > I am using the same solution. The only problem is
> > that I have to make the
> > backups separately(in my case). Also this helps more
> > in accessing the
> > images, you don't have to access for each image the
> > database, you just have
> > to get the file path.
> >
> > Think also at the dump size of the database (with
> > blobs). (if you have 100GB
> > of photos..the dump will be also that big)
> >
> > I never tied to put the database on 2 disks, I read
> > somewhere that is
> > possible but I never tried it. In my situation I
> > don't need this, because
> > the size of the DB is not quite that big. But for
> > the photos we will use
> > more discs (we are not using 2 yet) and there is no
> > difference in this case
> > how many discs you use, because in the DB you store
> > only the path.
> >
> > I see it this way more simple, maybe other have
> > other opinions.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Andy.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Theodore Petrosky" <tedpet5(at)yahoo(dot)com>
> > To: <pgsql-sql(at)postgresql(dot)org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 6:10 PM
> > Subject: [SQL] not really SQL but I need info on
> > BLOBs
> >
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I am starting a new project where I need to store
> > a
> > > lot of tiff images. So the question beckons...
> > which
> > > is better (not correct)?
> > > store a blob in the database and let the db manage
> > the
> > > data or
> > > store the image in a directory and store the path
> > to
> > > the data in the db.
> > >
> > > What are your opinions? Is one method better than
> > the
> > > other or are there simply different trade offs?
> > >
> > > If I store the tiff on the computer and only store
> > the
> > > path in the database it would be easier to add
> > more
> > > disk space to the computer without any changes to
> > the
> > > db. Also, there would be 'virtually' unlimited
> > storage
> > > space (only limited by the OS)
> > >
> > > However, it looks like it would be easier to
> > create a
> > > connection to the database to access the blobs.
> > >
> > > I would love to hear not just what others have
> > done
> > > but why they did it?
> > >
> > > Thanks for listening...
> > >
> > > BTW, I really like the zeroconf (rendezvous)
> > support
> > > in postgresql.
> > >
> > > Ted
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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