Custom Images Folders?

Do you keep the folders for customavatars, customprofilepics, customgroupicons and signaturepics in the root folder of your forum or do you remove/move them to another location?

 

I store images and attachments in the filesystem rather than the database. Each has their own specific folder. E.g. /attachments.

 

Why do you rather use the file system instead of the database system?

 

Because image files, attachments, etc. just bloat the database. My forum is attachment-heavy, so it just adds so much to the database. I prefer to keep the database as slim as possible and removing attachments/images helps me do just that.

If you're curious, here are the relevant stats according to my ACP:

• Data usage (database): 69.18MB
• Attachment usage: 253.37MB
• Total Attachments: 3,012

So by keeping the attachments in the filesystem, I'm keeping my database 253.37MB smaller. My attachments take up more than three-and-a-half times the size of my database alone.