The age old problem - storage space vs. speed

[morphboy23]

Ok, currently I have this query:

"SELECT 
     (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM inquiries WHERE iduser = '$id') AS icount, 
     (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM responses WHERE iduser = '$id') AS rcount, 
     (SELECT IFNULL( SUM( total_value ) / SUM( total_votes ) , 0 ) FROM ratings, responses WHERE responses.iduser = '$id' AND responses.idresponse = ratings.id AND ratings.total_votes > 0) AS avgscore"

 

With 3 rows in 'users', 35 in both 'ratings' and 'responses', and 29 in 'inquiries', this query took about 1/1000th of a second on my machine. These values are used in an equation in php, and must are fetched every time a user's profile page is loaded.  With many more rows in these tables, would this query be very slow? I'm wondering whether or not to add a field to one of the tables to hold the calculated score when an inquiry/response row is added, or when a rating row is updated. Or should I just keep things like this? It's the age old storage space & feasibility vs. speed

[bubblegum.anarchy]

Does the following produce the same results faster?

 

SELECT 
    sum(inquiries.iduser IS NOT NULL) AS icount,
    sum(response.iduser IS NOT NULL) AS rcount,
    ifnull(sum(ratings.total_value) / sum(ratings.total_votes), 0) AS avgscore
FROM users
    LEFT JOIN inquires ON users.id = inquries.iduser
    LEFT JOIN responses ON users.id = responses.iduser
    LEFT JOIN ratings ON responses.idresponse = ratings.id
WHERE users.id = '{$id}'

 

Speed is probably more important when dealing with the dynamics of the Internet.  Storage size is less dynamic and easier to control than bandwidth traffic.