Wanda, please have your server admins perform some performance troubleshooting 
to see what might gain you the most improvements. Here is a link to help:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779038(WS.10).aspx

If you can't make heads or tails of this I'll try to help.
Also, there are some simple things that you'll want to check--e.g. indexing 
service(off), anti-virus(exclude directory with all those files). If possible, 
I would consider moving to a 64bit platform. While it will not solve any 
potential spindle problems, it will allow you to put more usable RAM on the 
system and hold more data in RAM for caching.

Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Prather, Wanda
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 2:35 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Windows servers with a kazillion files and Win2K8...

Thanks for the reply and the reference; I'll read that.
It's a 32 bit system.
Do you think adding RAM will help with the issues navigating the file tree?

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Storer, Raymond
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 2:22 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Windows servers with a kazillion files and Win2K8...

Wanda, is this a 32 or 64 bit system? An NTFS file system will support about 4 
Billion files on a single volume 
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc781134(WS.10).aspx . If you are 
having performance issues with this and you can switch it to a 64bit platform 
and add loads of RAM, I would do it.

Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Prather, Wanda
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 2:03 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: [ADSM-L] Windows servers with a kazillion files and Win2K8...

I have a site with an application that generates kazillions of tiny files that 
are stored forever.
I've already yelled about it, but it's a purchased, customer-facing black-box 
app that they really can't change.
(Naturally, when it was bought umpty years ago, nobody thought about the 
problem reaching this size or what the ramifications would be.)  Every day the 
app creates more files.

They have multiple Win2K3 servers that already have multiple luns containing 
over 35M files each, one is over 75M files.

We are using journaling to back them up successfully (most days).
But it's a struggle just to expand the file tree with Windows explorer, and 
there are exposures on the days when the journal gets overrun (takes 72 hours 
for TSM to scan the filesystem and revalidate the journal).

Looking for anything that might help save our bacon.

Has anybody had experience with this issue and Win2K8?
Does Win2K8 do any better than Win2K3 at handling huge numbers of files in 1 
NTFS directory?
Upgrading the OS is something application-independent we might be able to do.

Thanks for any insight!
W


Wanda Prather  |  Senior Technical Specialist  | wprather AT icfi DOT 
com<mailto:wprather AT icfi DOT com>  |  www.jasi.com<www.jasi.com%20> ICF 
Jacob & Sundstrom  | 401 E. Pratt St, Suite 2214, Baltimore, MD 21202 | 
410.539.1135


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