How to handle Multiple ACL on List Item without performance starve

Question

I'm facing a problem with some items in my List. I want to have an Huge document Library (thousands of files in folders + GB of files) and I want to have different permissions on the files.

I want (by default) that everything is editable but to stop it whenever I want it.

Suppose there is fileA that I want to set it as "for groupA only". Programmatically I can brake inheritance on it and put on it the permissions I need.

This is ok but creates a new ACL for this element... Supponing a need to set fileB as "for GroupA only" i must brake again and do the same action.

This action create 2 different ACL which makes my system "slower"... There is a way to crate an ACL like "for groupA only" and assign it to fileA, fileB and so on without decrease perfromance? Or the only way is to create a folder with "groupA only access" and put the files in it?

Thank you very much!!

Answer 1

I'd say to use folders with unique permissions on the folders where needed but then in your views, choose to show items without folders. This will security trim everything so users still only have access to what they need but you won't run into performance problems with item level permissions.

The files in the folder inherit permissions from the folder, and if you need different permissions for a file, you could just move it to a different folder.