<p>If you are on SQL server 2008 or above then you can use the filestream feature that is like the best of both worlds. It stores the image in the filesystem but has it under transactional control and is also included in your backups when they are taken.</p>

<p>If you are not on 2008 or above then I would say to keep the images in the DB, see this old Microsoft white paper for my reasons why.</p>

<p><a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs.DB/0701168" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs.DB/0701168</a></p>
Storing images in SQL Server using C#
<p>I want to store images of my employees with their profile details in SQL in a SQL Server database, but I have following reservations:</p>

<p>Should I compress images or not and if yes, please can the community provide me sample code or direct me to a guide that can assist me with this.</p>

<p>How should I retrieve images efficiently? I am afraid of asp.net application performance issues. I think with thousands of employee records, the system may halt or slow down.</p>