[olug] ¿ Max # of files in a folder?

Phil Brutsche phil at brutsche.us
Thu Feb 10 22:22:26 UTC 2005


Rob Townley wrote:
> How many files can Linux in general and Novell in particular have in a
> single folder before performance takes a hit?  Is there someway to run
> a program that tells you this information?

The answer is specific to your system configuration and software load.

The results from using an ext3 file system will differ greatly from XFS,
RiserFS, or Reiser4.

So will the file system options you have enabled (2.6.x kernels support
directory hashing to speed up file lookups while 2.4.x kernel generally
do not).

So will the disk subsystem - when you're doing an 'ls' on a directory
with 100k files, a 10k RPM SCSI drive will have a noticable advantage
over a 5400 RPM desktop drive.

As for Novell - I dunno.  The last time I had any involvement with
Novell was in high school... 10 years ago.

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us



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