[Xitami] Xitami performance regarding directory structures

[Gene Angel]

RPO wrote:

> I am running W2K Server (NTFS) and I have done some research 
> concerning directory limitations within the W2K environment and now I 
> am looking for potential limitations with Xitami.  My server will host 
> potentially 10s of thousands  of users.  Each user will have the 
> ability to create their own photo albums and then have photo books 
> within each album.  From a storage standpoint each user will have 
> their own user directory, that user directory will hold from 1 to 15 
> sub directories that will represent the photo albums.  Then each photo 
> album directory will have from 1 to 15 photo book albums.  Sorry for 
> the extensive path below put I wanted to give an accurate 
> representation of what I am looking to do.  The directory tree will 
> look like this (each numbered directory, ie: 1000, 2000 - will hold up 
> to 1000 user directories each).  The things I am considering are 
> sub-directory limitations per parent directory and performance issues 
> for Windows considering the directory structure and then ultimately 
> Xitami's performance handling the directory structure.  Comments?!
>  
> This is the only info I found pertaining to NTFS limitations: 
> http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp but 
> I am uncertain if I fully understand its implications.
>  
> xitami
>      - webpages
>           - albums
>                - 1000
>                     - user1
>                          - photoAlbum1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book2
>                          - photoAlbum2
>                               -photoAlbum2_book1
>                               -photoAlbum2_book2
>                     - user2
>                          - photoAlbum1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book2
>                          - photoAlbum2
>                               -photoAlbum2_book1
>                               -photoAlbum2_book2
>                     - user3
>                     ...
>                     - user1000
>                - 2000
>                     - user1001
>                          - photoAlbum1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book2
>                          - photoAlbum2
>                               -photoAlbum2_book1
>                               -photoAlbum2_book2
>                     - user1002
>                          - photoAlbum1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book1
>                               -photoAlbum1_book2
>                          - photoAlbum2
>                               -photoAlbum2_book1
>                               -photoAlbum2_book2
>                     - user1003
>                     ...
>                     - user2000
>                - 3000
>                - 4000
>                - 5000 (5,000 users)
>                ..
>                ..
>                - 100000 (100,000 users)
>                ..
>                ..
>                - 1000000 (1 million users)


I hold  alot of users/folders under Win2k3 NTFS.  NTFS uses a btree (I 
believe) so it's pretty good on bulky directories.  You can increase 
performance two ways through windows.  Use a directory tree index scheme 
to limit your folder/files per directory or (and I think the bigest 
performance gain for you) would be windows disk Cache.  Windows disk 
cache comes from "unused" memory so the more free memory you got the 
more file/directory tables will be able to be held in memory.  This lets 
the system bypass hard drive tables and access directly from RAM which 
is much faster.  My main server has 1 gig of ram and I will upgrade it 
to 2 before long.  Win2k3 also has faster file access then win2k.

  Gene