Recommendation for number of files per folder

XP64 BIT, pdm 2010 sp2.1:

We have a couple folders with more than 2000 files in it. On folder has 3500 files and takes about 40 sec. to open.  I think that a folder max should be open in 10-15 sec so would prefere not more than 2000 files in a folder.

WIN7 64 BIT, PDM 2010SP 2.1

Same folder ,about 30 sec

EDIT: update with OS

It seems to depend on the operating system. Windows 7 seems to be quite a bit more efficient than XP and Vista.

As a test, I've put 44,500 files in a directory... https://forum.solidworks.com/message/50412 It was a bit painful.

So depending on your client machines 2-3,000 max is what I say.

For our PDF files, we a series of 9 folders with sub folders for each drawing number.....about 80,000 total. I recorded the time to open each folder containing the sub folders.

This probably depends on how many people are accessing these folders as well. Since these are PDFs that are automatically placed in the folder by a program, the users never browse there, they just search on the files and open them to view.

The average is about 550 files per second on our system running 2009 sp4.

Hi

We've got one folder in particular with more than 8,000 files in and it takes about 10 sec to open and our users work in this foler all day.  I have another folder with 17,000 files in it and it takes a little longer.

For us, this is how it needs to be.  What I train my users to do is use the search tool.  I created a small pdmsearch.bat file to put on their desktops (got the idea and / flag for it from another post on this forum).  Any file in the vault can found in less than 3 seconds if you know something about it found on the data card.  Using the search tool makes the browsing time irrelevant and it really leverages the power of pdm since it is a database.  Plus in PDM you don't want alot of folders anyway, so fewer bigger folder become the norm.

So, IMHO, don't get too hung up on access times - use your search tool.

Good luck,

Ben