On 4/11/06, Gilbert Midonnet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm creating a database for a store. It will probably have several > thousand items (but will probably never come close to 10,000). > > The pictures of the items will be stored in a file directory (not as a > blob in a database). What is the maximum amount of files that can be > stored in a directory and still have an efficient response time.
Efficient response time is very much a nebulous concept -- hardware, load, and user-dependent. As far as maximum amounts go, that is *filesystem* dependent. Some MS specifics are here (eg 4+ billion files for NTFS) http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c13621675.mspx Linux specifics vary all over the map, since there are so many filesystems, some designed for closer to petabyte storage arrays. > It would be so much simpler to have all the graphics in one directory. > Will I be causing problems later on by doing that? The smartest thing to do would be to abstract out the storage details so you can change the implementation when you need to. You want a function like PathToItem(itemId) that gives you back the location of the file. But you want the implementation to be a black box to the rest of the app. That way you can start with the simplest possible approach and hard-code a path function PathToItem(itemId) return '/path/to/my/file pathToItem(8202) -> c:/wwwroot/myapp/images Then later decide that you need to partition out numerically by the item id into groups of 1000 as someone suggested in this thread function PathToItem(itemId) return '/rootpath/' & (itemId DIV 1000) & '/' & itemId pathToItem(8202) -> c:/wwwroot/myapp/images/8/8202 Then later you find that breaking the directories by month/year of entry makes more sense function PathToItem(itemId) return '/rootpath/' & Year(createddate) & '/' & Month(createddate) & itemId pathToItem(8202) -> c:/wwwroot/myapp/images/2006/04/8202 etc. If you use this to create the path when you write the image and when you read it, you're set. -- John Paul Ashenfelter CTO/Transitionpoint (blog) http://www.ashenfelter.com (email) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:237430 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
