>That's only true if you (and only you) have the requisite OS access and permissions. Even then it's not simple to achieve as part of a standard installation process. And even if you do that to solve the security problem there may still, depending on the app, be potential issues with concurrency.
>
>But (leaving aside the FILESTREAM option) did you look at the white paper here :http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=64525
>Their conclusion seemed to be that for image sizes sub 256Kb varbinary was 'a clear winner' and only above 1Mb was that true for a standalone file strategy ?
>
>Potential issues of concurrency with a file being read? I have clients with users who concurrently read images stored in a sharepoint picture library all the time.

Read shouldn't be a problem but my current app has clients not only writing images but editing and updating existing ones......

>
>The white paper deals solely with fragmentation.....and many of the images I've come across are larger than 1 MB. (Most of my clients in the past have used TIFF and not JPG)
>
>I realize there are multiple ways to accomplish this - but I still maintain that storing externally is the best bet.

OK. Let's settle on horses-for-courses :-}