Maximum number of folders within an NTFS directory?

Discussion in 'Site & Server Administration' started by briandunning, Oct 5, 2005.

  1. #1
    Does anyone know if XP (formatted NTFS) imposes a maximum number of folders that can live inside a folder? Couldn't find that by STFW.

    I ran a process that created 68,415 folders (each containing 5 tiny text files) inside a folder, and now I'm not able to get properties or open that enclosing folder. I can see all the contents via the command line, but not via XP.
     
    briandunning, Oct 5, 2005 IP
  2. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #2
    Can you cd to it from the command prompt? I suspect whatever limitation you are hitting is probably a limitation of Windows (the GUI) itself, not the file system.
     
    digitalpoint, Oct 5, 2005 IP
  3. vectorgraphx

    vectorgraphx Guest

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    #3
    look at this article:


    http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp

    as far as i can tell, you're not limited to any particular number of objects/subfolders on NTFS, though FAT32 etc has object limitations.

    That article gives some suggestions for how to deal with your problem, though I personally haven't tried them out myself.

    EDIT: shawn is right - try the command prompt. i've had luck with it before as well, when trying to access particularly stubborn folders with lots of items in them.
     
    vectorgraphx, Oct 5, 2005 IP
    briandunning likes this.
  4. briandunning

    briandunning Active Member

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    #4
    Like I said, yes it's all there via the command prompt, just not via Windows. Thanks for the link, I'll check that out.
     
    briandunning, Oct 5, 2005 IP
  5. digitalpoint

    digitalpoint Overlord of no one Staff

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    #5
    That's what I was just looking at too. :) It has a note about optimizing NTFS if you have a folder with more than 300,000 files in it, so I don't think whatever is going is a limitation of NTFS itself.
     
    digitalpoint, Oct 5, 2005 IP