Image databasing / storing

[smatts9]

I have a site, and I am going to put up an image upload script for my members. When saving images to the server would it be better to make separate directories such as:

site.com/images/ user's unique id / photoid.extension

or just

site.com/images/userid_photoid.ext

both would create unique filenames so I wouldn't have a problem there, but wondering which is faster and better?

[Sekka]

Option 1 would be tidier for the server.

Option 2 would be easier to manage and maintain.

Either is good really in my opinion.

[jatar_k]

I honestly think option 1 is the best

[stajer]

Consider scalability. If you site takes off, option 2 is easier to replicate and maintain across load balanced machines.

[whoisgregg]

There is an overhead for an operating system to open/access a folder with lots of files (tens of thousands). For this reason alone, I would go with /user_id/photo_id.ext

[jatar_k]

>> option 2 is easier to replicate and maintain across load balanced machines

how so?

[hwhappy]

I don't think there is any question really, option 1 is definately going to be the best, logically and physically, especially when the initial effort to do it that way isn't much.

There shouldn't really be an issue with speed that will be noticable, but I would say option 1 should allow for faster queries.

Cheers

Happy