Number of Mounted Volumes 2K Can Handle?

[jkstinn]

We have had several instances where one department would fill up the
file server and lock out
everyone else because the drive was full. We have looked into getting
a soft solution such, but management
is reluctant to dish the money and would rather use an alternative.

The plan is to set up separate volumes for each Department and then
also each
department's divisions with a separate mounted volume. Sounds good,
but I am concerned with wether
the server could handle the amount of mounted volumes and how it would
affect performance.
The approximate amount of volumes would be around 100.

What are your thoughts on this?


Windows 2000 Adv Server
4 2.8GHz Processors
2GB RAM


c:\ (System Drive)
D:\ (User Data)
|
|-- Dept Folders
| | 2.5GB
| |- 1st Dept --> Mounted To --> Volume 1
| |- 2nd Dept --> Mounted To --> Volume 2
| |- 3rd Dept --> Mounted To --> Volume 3
|
|-- Div Folders
|
|- 1st Dept
| | 1GB
| |- 1st Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 4
| |- 2nd Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 5
| |- 3rd Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 6
|
|- 2nd Dept
|
|- 1st Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 7
|- 2nd Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 8
|- 3rd Div --> Mounted To --> Volume 9

 

[Ndi]

There is no doc I could find that would specify this, so I guess we'll
have to fall back to what we have.

NT uses GUIDs for volumes and stores mount points as a junction, which is
basically a folder entry that has been marked to be a junction. Since there
is no realistic limit towards either, you should be OK with it, regardless
of how many you have (assuming a human limit, not in the order of millions).
Junctions also take space in the registry, so it's possible to somewhat
touch or bypass MS's recommended key limit. But since the limit document was
published for Windows 95, I think it's safe to go slightly over (storage
methods have changed).

I expect the limit to be quite close to the server's memory or disk
limitation rather than a mount point limit. If Windows can handle the
volumes (and it can), it will handle the mounts.