Still talking about NetApp devices but here's a different question:
Has anyone used a NetApp device for ProjectWise file storage and if so, have you considered the 100,000 folder limit to be an issue?
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When it comes to creating files and folders, ProjectWise is bound by the file system the Storage Area is on. We have had reports from a few users with Storage Areas on NetAPP SANS that when they try to create a new folder it fails. In looking at the DMSKrnl.log there is an Error 13 which is a Windows error related to file system access.
We have learned that NetAPP SANs have a hard limit of 100,000 folders in a folder. We are told by a user that contacted NetAPP that this limit was imposed for performance reasons and cannot be changed. Below are two links to NetAPP community posts about this limit.
http://communities.netapp.com/thread/5180 http://communities.netapp.com/message/17496
http://communities.bentley.com/products/projectwise/b/projectwise_blog/archive/2011/03/14/projectwise-storage-areas-on-netapp-sans.aspx
Scott,
One solution to the 100,000 folder hard limit is to create multiple ProjectWise storage areas. The 100,000 limit is in the number of subfolders under a single parent folder, since each ProjectWise storage area is its own parent folder, you would then be able have more than 100,000 folders on the device.
Thank you John, that was the information I was looking for.
Just an update..
We hit a limit on a recent netapp install. The limit should be around 4billion but we are hitting a limit at about 600k.
It is at the subdirectory level. Can still create subdirectories of subdirectories but no more in the main subdirectory.
That limit was removed with Data ONTAP 8.1 in June 2012 (it was 64,000 before with v6.5). But it would be in your best interest to manage more storage areas for performance sake.