Huge number of files in a directory

[Andrew Elliott]

The limit of the number of files in a directory is variable and set when the
FS is created.  It depends on the size of the volume; if you do a 'df -i' it
will tell you the available inodes you have.  This will help to determine
the limits of the fs which could help in determining where the bottleneck
is.

Quantity?...I've had problems doing an 'ls -al' on a single directory with
45000 files in it (EXT3 on external scsi array)...so I'm surprised that
you're not having problems already...

Suggestions?  I've read that XFS and ReiserFS are the best fs types for
working with a large amount of small files, although the article was old
(2006).  Reiser will consume more CPU than the others, but that's just from
my personal experience.  

If you do find the number of files is a bottleneck, hardware is the easiest
fix.  I'd recommend getting the fastest drives and bus that you can
afford...

I would definitely research the issue before doing anything about it...

Andrew.

 

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Hello,

I serve static content with an Apache server, and store the files in a 
storage server, wich is mounted in the webserver via NFS. 95% of the 
files that I serve are images, and the format of the file name is 
{number}.png.

I have these images all together in a single directory, and there was 
about 4 million files in this folder.

I wanto to change this directory structure to something more secure and 
dynamic, to permit an easier way to scale and backup these files.

My questions are:

- When the quantity of files will start to become a bottleneck for my 
filesystem? ( they are stored in partition with ext3)

- When the quantity of files will start to become a bottleneck for my OS?

- Suggestions?

Thanks

[]s
    Fábio Jr.

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