Will turning off htaccess have a noticable performance increase?
Solution 1:
Apache won't need to look for a .htaccess file every time it accesses a file. The actual performance benefit will depend on,
- traffic to your site
- site layout
- server profile
I suggest you baseline the existing performance, using a web stress tool such as Apache's ab, make the change, re-profile, and see how much impact it has.
As to your second question, yes, I believe you would move the .htaccess stuff into <Directory> sections in your <VirtualHost>.