Loading files via HTTP or directly from the server?

Hi there, I did recently discover that I might have a important failure in my webapp. But I am not sure about it. All the image files, js, css files I am accessing are loaded like this: http://www.server.com/test/image.gif Same with JS and css files. Now I am wondering if it would be faster to access them directly from the disk on the server. due to my architecture I can only use apsolute pathnames. I tryed /folder/file.gif but this does not work. Thanx for any help, Andy