Saving images on sql server databases extremely slow

I have a powerbuilder 12.6 classic application, where I'm saving images to the database

I'm doing an updateblob... but, even a select statement seems pretty slow

the images aren't exactly very large..   

any suggestions, on ways to speed this up?

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[ancil_docs](

  [doc_id] [bigint] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,

  [part_no] [varchar](9) NOT NULL,

  [pool_no] [varchar](9) NULL,

  [doc_date] [datetime] NOT NULL,

  [doc_path] [varchar](250) NULL,

  [doc_type] [varchar](4) NULL,

  [doc_number] [int] NULL,

  [doc_image] [varbinary](max) NULL,

CONSTRAINT [PK_ancil_docs] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

(

  [doc_id] ASC

)

blob image_blob

updateblob ancil_docs set doc_image = :image_blob

    where doc_id = :curent_id using SQLCA;