How does vbulletin handle profile images?

[vb_guru]

How does vbulletin handle profile images? I noticed that there is a table for the profile picture that a member can upload. Within this table there is a field for image name and then it appears that the image is store in the database in this table. I always thought it was better to store the images in a directory and then just dynamically generate a link to the image in the directory. It seems like a huge resource hog to have the image store in the database. Any thought or opinions? We plan on having about 50,000 members with images in their profiles and looking for the easiest way to handle this.

Also is there a bulk upload feature that will allow us to import all the images into the table if in fact all the images are stored in the table?

Thanks!

this was a debate for long, as the avatar have the alternative to save in the db or in a file... would be great to have someone port the same system for the picture profile...
(btw, i'm too lazy to do it myself!)