Writing to a folder with many files inside it?

[Alex]

Hi,

I have a question regarding reduced perfomance on comp with Win 2000/2003 on
folders with many files inside.

The question is as follows:

Do the computer have to work harder to copy/create a file to/in a folder
that resides 100.000 files than a folder containing lets say 100 files?

What I'm thinking of is if the computer have to check that folder that there
is no files with the same name etc.

Thanks,
Alexander

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I have a question regarding reduced perfomance on comp with Win 2000/2003 on
folders with many files inside.

The question is as follows:

Do the computer have to work harder to copy/create a file to/in a folder
that resides 100.000 files than a folder containing lets say 100 files?

What I'm thinking of is if the computer have to check that folder that there
is no files with the same name etc.

Thanks,
Alexander

You will find that a PCs performance drops markedly when
accessing files inside a folder with more than 5,000 entries.
This is particularly noticeable with NTFS volumes. It's probably
caused by the way folder entries are indexed.

 

[Alex]

You will find that a PCs performance drops markedly when
accessing files inside a folder with more than 5,000 entries.
This is particularly noticeable with NTFS volumes. It's probably
caused by the way folder entries are indexed.

Hi,

Thank you for the quick reply.

Is this also true when an application is accessing that folder, or is this
only when browsing?

Regards,
Alexander

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

Thank you for the quick reply.

Is this also true when an application is accessing that folder, or is this
only when browsing?

Regards,
Alexander

When browsing with Windows Explorer, Windows must
sort your numerous entries according to the sort criteria you
specify. This takes time.

When opening a file with an application then the application
must open a "file handle". This can take a lot of time with
croweded folders.

Why don't you run some of your own experiments, using
a first folder with 1,000 entries and a second folder with
20,000 entries? Reboot the machine between tests, to
create consistent conditions. Here is a batch file that will
create any number of files:

@echo off
set number=20000
md c:\%Number%
for /L %%a in (1,1,%Number%) do echo. > c:\%Number%\%%a.txt

 

[Alex]

When browsing with Windows Explorer, Windows must
sort your numerous entries according to the sort criteria you
specify. This takes time.

When opening a file with an application then the application
must open a "file handle". This can take a lot of time with
croweded folders.

Why don't you run some of your own experiments, using
a first folder with 1,000 entries and a second folder with
20,000 entries? Reboot the machine between tests, to
create consistent conditions. Here is a batch file that will
create any number of files:

@echo off
set number=20000
md c:\%Number%
for /L %%a in (1,1,%Number%) do echo. > c:\%Number%\%%a.txt

Thanks Pegasus, I will try that.

Regards,
Alexander