Content DB Size Limit SharePoint 2010

Question

How is the content db size limit enforced in SharePoint 2010? nothing from the SharePoint side, right? Its just the Database bit.

If it is done from the SharePoint side then how it is done?

Answer 1

“We strongly recommended limiting the size of content databases to 200 GB to help ensure system performance.

“Content database sizes up to 1 terabyte are supported only for large, single-site repositories and archives with non-collaborative I/O and usage patterns, such as Records Centers. Larger database sizes are supported for these scenarios because their I/O patterns and typical data structure formats have been designed for, and tested at, larger scales.

“A site collection should not exceed 100 GB unless it is the only site collection in the database.”

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/markarend/archive/2010/05/18/sharepoint-2010-content-database-size.aspx

for boundries limmit for sharepoint 2010

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787(v=office.14).aspx

the limmit is controlled by both, sharepoint and by sql. SQL server can be capped and has its own limmits to what it can handle. Sharepoint also has its own constrainst as i posted and can be changed but highly not recommended!

EDIT

surpassing 200GB requires that your disk subsystem supplies performance of at least .25 IOPS per GB; 2 IOPS is recommended for optimal performance. Let’s look at what this means for collaborative content databases.

So…what’s an IOPS? IOPS stands for Input/output Operations per Second – in short, how many read write transactions per second can be moved through the disk.

SharePoint 2010 RBS and the 200GB content database limit

The offical max is 4TB! (only after installing SP1)

Up 4TB

"Requires disk sub-system performance of 0.25 IOPS per GB, 2 IOPS per GB is recommended for optimal performance.

Requires the customer to have plans for high availability, disaster recovery, future capacity, and performance testing.

And you need to review additional considerations in the TechNet Boundaries and Limits article."

To go over 4TB

"SharePoint sites must be based on Document Center or Records Center site templates and must be an archive scenario where less than 5% of content is actively read from each month and less than 1% of content is actively written to.

Do not use alerts, workflows, link fix-ups, or item level security on any SharePoint objects in the content database.

Note: document archive content databases can be the recipient of documents as a result of Content Routing workflow."

to go mad you can used RBS that will do the trick!

Overview of RBS (SharePoint Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee748607(v=office.14).aspx

Install and configure RBS (SharePoint Foundation 2010)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee663474(v=office.14).aspx

hope it helps

Answer 2

SharePoint will continue to work with large databases if not controlled, they will not fail when they exceed the recommended limits. You will however start to see performance degradation.

You can limit sizes in SQL by specifying the maximum size a database can grow to. in fact it is a best practice to pre-size your databases at the maximum limit (if it is expected to grow to maximum) to avoid the auto growth penalty.

With SharePoint, you can "kind of" control database growth. If you limit the number of site collections that can reside in a database, and ensure that those site collections have a quota assigned, then you have effectively limited the size the database can grow to. For example, you set the database to a maximum of one site collection, and you set a quota of 200GB on that site collection, then that site collection, and thus the database will be restricted. This requires some internal operational policies to ensure these controls are not side stepped as they are generally easier to change than having a hard size set in SQL.

It is best to use a combination of these to control your environment. If you are doing this to watch disk growth, be aware the you need to control your log file growth, and TempDB as well.