[ubuntu-us-ma] 10,000+ files in a folder slows down ...

[John Abreau]

That's really not an Ubuntu issue. A folder with that many files will
have performance issues on any OS. And not just from a GUI, either;
you'll have performance issues on a command line, too.

Typically, folders get this large when an automated process keeps
adding new files to the folder over long periods of time.  When I write
scripts that need to do this, I avoid the problem by writing the files to
a subfolder.  My preferred method is to make yearly/daily folders, e.g.
instead of creating the file

    /path/to/dir/foo12345.jpg

I'll make it

    /path/to/dir/2009/2009-06-25/foo12345.jpg

The process is unlikely to run for 10,000+ years, and each yearly folder
will have at most 366 daily subfolders.

I've never run into a situation where I expected the process to generate
10,000+ files per day, but if the situation ever comes up, I could extend
the logic to a third level of hourly or minutely subsubfolders.


On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 8:29 AM, Brian DeLacey<bdelacey at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have experience with folders containing lots of files in Ubuntu?
> Like 10,000+? The files are relatively small - the total disk size is under
> 1G.
>
> Ubuntu's GUI seems to have a difficult time managing folders of this size
> (eg. attempting to "select all" and copy so many individual/small files to
> another folder hangs - or takes incredibly long.)
>
> Any suggestions on how to manage this large number of small files
> efficiently?
>
> Thanks,
> Brian
>
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