rangi500
asked on
Ideal max files/directories per directory
Hi guys,
I'm using Red Hat Enterprise and would like to know what the ideal maximum number of files/directories per directory is. Currently we have a directory with over 7000 directories in it. For various reasons we now have to restructure this directory, and an important factor in deciding how to do this will be the ideal number of files/directories per directory.
A few years ago I was doing a similar project but on a Sun Solaris system, and the sys admin there told me the ideal max inodes per directory was about 200.
If anyone knows what the figure would be for Red Hat Enterprise, your advise would be very much appreciated.
Rangi
I'm using Red Hat Enterprise and would like to know what the ideal maximum number of files/directories per directory is. Currently we have a directory with over 7000 directories in it. For various reasons we now have to restructure this directory, and an important factor in deciding how to do this will be the ideal number of files/directories per directory.
A few years ago I was doing a similar project but on a Sun Solaris system, and the sys admin there told me the ideal max inodes per directory was about 200.
If anyone knows what the figure would be for Red Hat Enterprise, your advise would be very much appreciated.
Rangi
I don't know if there is an "ideal number" of nodes within a directory for Linux or Solaris, but 7000 in one directory seems like a lot. I suspect that the the "ideal number" is largely determined by the way those nodes are used. An application that only accessed the directory at startup wouldn't suffer as much as one that was continuous accessing the directory. For the later apps breaking the single large directory in to some sort of hashed structure would be a big help.
ASKER
Thanks for your feedback guys.
pYrania, apparenly there was an 'optimal' number of files per directory - perhaps a 'most efficient' number?
jlevie, yes we are planning to create a better structure, possibly hashed, but one of the main things we need to know to make the decision on how we do it is how many directories to put in each directory. If 7000, sounds like a lot, what sounds like "not a lot" - 1000? 100?
Some facts that may or may not be relevant:
- the folders are read from much more than they are written to
- the folders make up about 500GB of data
- our sys admin has said the 7000 dirs in one dir may be responsible for crashing our backup software
Thanks,
Rangi
pYrania, apparenly there was an 'optimal' number of files per directory - perhaps a 'most efficient' number?
jlevie, yes we are planning to create a better structure, possibly hashed, but one of the main things we need to know to make the decision on how we do it is how many directories to put in each directory. If 7000, sounds like a lot, what sounds like "not a lot" - 1000? 100?
Some facts that may or may not be relevant:
- the folders are read from much more than they are written to
- the folders make up about 500GB of data
- our sys admin has said the 7000 dirs in one dir may be responsible for crashing our backup software
Thanks,
Rangi
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I've seen performant filesystems with a lot more files/directories within another directory.