title: What is the difference between the sql blob and image types
body: <p>This question was actually posed to me this morning by one of my compadres, and it completely threw me, in so far as I didn't even realise SQL had an 'image' datatype so I've always simply gone down the route of compacting files/images etc into BLOB fields.</p>
  
  <p>After having a (very) quick look around msdn the most I could really find was the info that the image datatype <strike>pages</strike> works like a blob or varbinary(max) up to a [max] size of ~2GB but past this can't seem to find too much more about it.</p>
  
  <p>I'm wondering if maybe the image datatype is a way of providing indexable/searchable metadata on images within SQL...?</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have anything to offer, by way of links or explanations regarding this?</p>
  
  <p>Any help would be gratefully received, so many thanks in advance of any replies! </p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE / Possible answer</strong></p>
  
  <p>After a little more digging I've perhaps acheived some headway with this...</p>
  
  <p>It may well be that my original thoughts on what the "image" type relates to may have been somewhat misguided, maybe due to the type being titled "image" (which I apparently found quite misleading on first look) which I thought related to an image in a mimetype kinda way, but which appears to infer more of a "disk-image" or "binary-image" sort of idea.</p>
  
  <p>In this way it seems that the IMAGE type was introduced to SQL before the varbinary type was allowed as a (max) field, possibly as a way of storing files in SQL in the way that is now taken for granted (by myself at least) with the use of VARBINARY(MAX)...</p>
  
  <p><em><strong>For Reference</strong> (both reasonably old but seem to fit the bill):</em></p>
  
  <p><a href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/138883-Storing-Retrieving-images-from-SQL-Server-2005" rel="noreferrer">http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/138883-Storing-Retrieving-images-from-SQL-Server-2005</a></p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.basenow.com/help/Data_types_in_Microsoft_SQL_Server.asp" rel="noreferrer">http://www.basenow.com/help/Data_types_in_Microsoft_SQL_Server.asp</a></p>
  
  <p>If anyone can offer any constructive crit on this possible answer that would be really useful in trying to understand this...</p>
  
  <p>Cheers All!</p>