too many files in one folder?

[css]

Does anyone know if you can have too many files in one folder? I have
a folder on the server which is pointed to by 3 different programs.
In this folder, there are 120,000+ files. No file exceeds 3kb. I
have one computer on the network which is doing strange things with
this folder - not refreshing, locking up, etc.

Thanks for any and all help :wink:

 

[m0rk]

Does anyone know if you can have too many files in one folder? I have
a folder on the server which is pointed to by 3 different programs.
In this folder, there are 120,000+ files. No file exceeds 3kb. I
have one computer on the network which is doing strange things with
this folder - not refreshing, locking up, etc.

Thanks for any and all help :wink:

I dont know the limits, but I recently had some software dumping 400k
files into a folder and any time trying to get access to the folder, it
would take 10 minutes before any response from the server came back.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, css.

The limits depend on FILE system (NTFS or FAT), rather than on operating
system (Win2K or Win9x), which you didn't mention.

There may be practical limitations on the number of files that can be
comfortably used in an NTFS folder, but theoretically, you are nowhere near
the limit. See this page in the Win2K Resource Kit:
File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...2000/server/reskit/en-us/w2rkbook/default.asp

Sometimes those URLs don't land on exactly the page I had in mind in the
online version of the RK. If not, find the top of the RK in TechNet and
follow this path: Windows 2000 Resource Kits > Windows 2000 Professional
Resource Kit > System Configuration and Management > File Systems > File
System Comparisons

Table 17.5 there says that an NTFS folder can have 2^32 - 1 files; I think
that's over 4 billion files.

For FAT, the limits are much smaller.

RC

 

[Jerold Schulman]

4,294,967,295

Hi, css.

The limits depend on FILE system (NTFS or FAT), rather than on operating
system (Win2K or Win9x), which you didn't mention.

There may be practical limitations on the number of files that can be
comfortably used in an NTFS folder, but theoretically, you are nowhere near
the limit. See this page in the Win2K Resource Kit:
File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...2000/server/reskit/en-us/w2rkbook/default.asp

Sometimes those URLs don't land on exactly the page I had in mind in the
online version of the RK. If not, find the top of the RK in TechNet and
follow this path: Windows 2000 Resource Kits > Windows 2000 Professional
Resource Kit > System Configuration and Management > File Systems > File
System Comparisons

Table 17.5 there says that an NTFS folder can have 2^32 - 1 files; I think
that's over 4 billion files.

For FAT, the limits are much smaller.

RC

Jerold Schulman
Windows Server MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com
http://www.jsifaq.com