GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Quick Question: How many files can you have in a Linux Server folder?

zagi · 03-21-2005, 05:30 PM

The limits change from one OS to another, but one thing is true, Unix + Linux is notoriously bad with a large number of files in one directory.

I would have to estimate the upper limit between 20,000 - 30,000 after that performance suffers heavily. Yes the script may not use sub directories but it can always be modified. Usuaully you wont notice until its too late and then rewriting + sorting archived files is a big pain.

Take this into account before going production with this system would be my advice.

Under FreeBSD you can tune the following sysctl variables to increase performance for large # of files in a directory:

vfs.ufs.dirhash_minsize: 2560
vfs.ufs.dirhash_maxmem: 2097152

03-21-2005, 05:30 PM
zagi Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,238	The limits change from one OS to another, but one thing is true, Unix + Linux is notoriously bad with a large number of files in one directory. I would have to estimate the upper limit between 20,000 - 30,000 after that performance suffers heavily. Yes the script may not use sub directories but it can always be modified. Usuaully you wont notice until its too late and then rewriting + sorting archived files is a big pain. Take this into account before going production with this system would be my advice. Under FreeBSD you can tune the following sysctl variables to increase performance for large # of files in a directory: vfs.ufs.dirhash_minsize: 2560 vfs.ufs.dirhash_maxmem: 2097152 __________________ Managed US/NL Hosting [ [Reality Check Network ] Dell XEON Servers + 1/2/3 TB Packages ICQ: 4-930-562