Too many files in one folder!

Does Windows 2003 Server have a limtt on the number of files per folder?

[GaryK]

I run a custom-written forum for plastic model widget kit builders that's apparently been a bit more successful than I thought it would be.

This morning I checked the folder where photographic uploads for the forums are stored and there are ~21,000 files there. There are another ~6,000 files in the galleries.

The site is photo-centric so I really shouldn't have been so surprised!

Disk space isn't an issue. Rather, file and folder organization is an issue.

There has to be a better way of doing this than dumping all the forum photos into one folder, for example.

I was thinking about creating a sub-folder for each member and then putting all the photos that member uploaded in there. I prune the membership table in the database frequently so right now there are several thousand active members. So maybe this isn't such a good solution after all.

Here are my three questions:

1) Is there an accepted way of handling situations like this?

2) Is there a limit to how many files I can store in one folder?

3) Is there a limit on how many sub-folders each parent sub-folder can hold?

Thanks.

[collymellon]

As far as Im aware there is no limits to folder size or how many child folders a parent can hold..

I would sort the photo's by month?..

This would keep things much cleaner and organised.

[mattglet]

This might be what you're looking for:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[encyclo]

Are you using NTFS or FAT32? With FAT32 you are limited to 65,534 files, with certain caveats:

Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems [microsoft.com]

Moving to NTFS is vital, I would think...

[GaryK]

Thanks for the info and links. I couldn't find anything in Google about it this morning. Maybe because it was 6AM on a Monday! ;)