SQL Antipatterns

Legitimate Uses of the Antipattern

There are good reasons to store images or other large objects in files outside the database:

• The database is much leaner without images, because images tend to be large compared to simple datatypes like integers and strings.

• Backing up the database is faster and the result is smaller if images are not included. You must copy images from the filesystem as a separate backup step, but this can be more manageable than a huge database backup.

• If images are in files external to the database, it’s easier to do ad hoc image previewing or editing. For example, if you need to apply a batch edit to all your images, it’s especially good to keep images external to the database.

If these advantages of storing images ...