What is the Largest folder Size can I have ?

Hi,

I personally prefer having many partitions with my new 250 GB hard disk to organize my data better.

But Instead of having too many partitions some people have suggested having larger folders instead because they serve the same purpose & are easier to manage.

(1) My question is what is the largest folder size in MBs or GBs can I have ?

(2) What is the largest number of subfolders in that folder can I have ?

(3) What is the largest number of files can I have in that large folder & sub folder ?

(4) Are there any drawbacks of having say 10 partitions in a 250 GB hard disk ?

Thanks
Mike

 

As far as I know, there is no limit to any of those questions. A folder can contain as much information in as many sub-folders that you desire, as they are simply organizing the data.

having multiple partitions is usually good in case of corruption--so you dont lose data on the other partitions, however any more than 2-4 seems excessive to me. the downside to having many partitions comes when you are trying to access more than one at a time. For example, if you are trying to move information from one folder to another on a drive, it is relatively simple-- the data isnt moved, it is just addressed differently. When moving data from one partition to another on the same drive, the computer treats them as two separate drives. The disk must be accessed once to read from partition 1, and twice to write to partition two. this is much slower and more demanding of the hard drive.

 

There are limits, although they arent anything to really worry about.

Fat32:
Maximum number of files and subfolders within a single folder 65,534 (The use of long file names can significantly reduce the number of available files and subfolders within a folder.)

NTFS:
Maximum number of files and folders within the root folder 512 (Long file names can reduce the number of available files and folders in the root folder.)


Note NTFS is regarding the root directory of a drive.

Size Limitations in NTFS and FAT File Systems

 

Just curious where have you read that NTFS can only handle 512 files in the root folder ? (According to the link you gave it is the limit of FAT16).

More comparisons of FAT and NTFS:
Ntfs.com - NTFS vs. FAT
Smallvoid.com - Cluster size and partition formats

 

That was an oops on my part. I saw the limitations in the tables and assumed from the article that it was FAT32 vs NTFS.

That was a very embarrasing f-up on my part.



Although I do know there is a problem when you get too many folders in the root of the boot drive. It will cause boot problems. Don't ask me how many it takes, but the problem does exist in XP, and 2K.

 

Yes one have to be careful when dealing with computers, as it can be the difference of life and death

Btw. this link might be useful for the original question Whether to use more than one partition

 

I did a little digging and it seems my thoughts were somewhat correct.

according to MSKB, by our current standards there is basically an unlimited volume size and file size (256 Terabyte volume, and 16 Terabyte files have been successful, and dont come close to the maximum), and in theory, you can have 4,294,967,295 files per volume.

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

 

Thank you all.

Great inputs & help.

Mike