[OT] Performance Question

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I'm marking this questions OT because its not entirely mod_perl, but 
not entirely not-mod_perl...

I'm  going to serve a potentially large amount of images , so have 
decided to use directory hashing to store them, along with either 
sequential numbering or a 32char hex identifier -- so abcdefg.jpg is in 
the directory gf/ed/abcdefg.jpg

here's where mp2 comes in -- instead of writing out the hashed 
directory path, i was thinking about just writing the image name and 
hosting it off a location directive that would hash file requests 
transparently

essentially this would be the tradeoff:
apache a :  dynamic server
apache b : static server

   scenario 1
     apache a (mp2) : prints hashed image location
       extra , though tiny, function call to create location
       potentially larger bandwidth (though chained compression can 
mitigate this)
     apache b (vanilla) : serves hashed image location as-is

   scenario 2
     apache a (mp2) : prints image location
       no call to hash image
       slightly obfuscates backend data storage
     apache b:
       either:
       (mod_rewrite) rewrites requests on the fly
       (mp2) rewrites requests on the fly

does anyone think this is worthwhile to benchmark -- or would the extra 
load on the static server be an obviously drastic increase to seasoned 
users?