i have categories, sub-categories in my database from which i wan to make menu. total number of categories including sub-catgeories is 495 and sub-categories go to a depth of level 3.

i want to know which one will be faster and put less load on my server.

1. i use a function to generate menu every time page is loaded, so every time categories table needs to be crawled. right?

2. since i will update categories one in a while, so i use function to write them in a file in <ul><li> manner and use it as menu so that i don't have to use database