[NTLUG:Discuss] Maximum files per directory

[Steve Baker]

Richard Wolfe wrote:
> Is there a limit to the number of files I can put in a single
> directory? And even if there's no limit, are there practical
> reasons why I wouldn't want to exceed a certain number of files?
> Is 10,000 ok? How about 100,000? I'm running 2.4.18 (RedHat
> 8.0), and the filesystem is ext3, if any of that makes a
> difference.

A lot of things start to slow down quite a bit when you have a lot
of files in one directory.  We had a system that put 6,400 files
in one directory and the time taken to open a file went WAY up.

I'd strongly advise you to find a way to split it up into at least
a couple of levels of heirarchy.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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