Where to put 301 redirects in Magento?

[tilenkrivec]

I will be changing the URL structure in a magento store from "base/category/subcategory/product" to "base/product" which means i have to make over 1000 URL 301 redirects so our old links still work.

Should i put the redirects in a .htaccess file so they stay intact no matter what or should i just put them in with all the other rewrites (in Magento 's URL rewrite manager)?

Thanks

[IPROdigital]

Yes I suppose it would check everytime. That said, i have written files with several hundred lines of code and the sites still load really fast even on shared servers which are not the best...

[tilenkrivec]

Will that in any way slow down the site? Adding thousands of lines of code to the .htaccess file?

Edit: Checked some more, apparently having thousands of redirects in .htaccess file shows things downs, since Apache scans the file each time a new page is opened.

tl/dr: Stick with magento URL rewrites

[IPROdigital]

I think either is fine as long as it works. Personally I prefer to writ my own .htaccess files as I then understand exactly what I have done - it feels safer for some reason.