Performances: Files in root or paths?

[fernando garcia]

Hi all!

We are implanting SP in my company and the first question that has come up is how structure SP.

We have deployed a custom integration with Dynamics and our question is if upload all document to the root of the codument library(with views) or create folders and subfolders.

is there any performance issue if we upload several millions of documents to the root?

are there any "best practices" about this?

thanks for your help

[#2]

Well, first thing you have to ask yourself is about what user experience you want for your users when acceding the document library...the more folders you are the more you could potentially difficult the task to find the files. In regards of performance, just remember that you can store millions of documents in a single document library

[#3]

SharePoint has historically had issues once you get over 5000 items in a document library. If you are talking SharePoint online this has largely become a non issue with index being automatically created and maintained to ensure you can go well beyond this number. If you are implementing your own SharePoint Server then look into creating indexes for each column that users can sort or filter on.

I find folders are useful if you want to:
Have different security, and use folders to set security.
Want to apply default metadata as you can specify default metadata at a folder level so users don’t have to type in or select it all the time.