SharePoint 2010 List and Library Size

Great news about increased list capacities for SharePoint 2010:

Max recommended SharePoint 2010 list size is 30 million items or documents!

Plus, the maximum recommended number of items or documents in a view is now 5,000.  Specific guidelines are given in SharePoint Server 2010 Capacity Management- Software Boundaries and Limits.

We still highly recommend nesting documents in a folder structure when you want to store millions of documents in the library.  There are two new features to help you do this easily: the Content Organizer and Document IDs.

Content Organizer

This is a configuration that you can enable on a document library, to automatically organize documents into folder structures, even creating new folders when necessary.  Steve Peschka describes it best in his detailed article on the Content Organizer:

“…it can be used for mundane housekeeping type activities such as making sure that no folder within a document library contains more than 5000 items, for example. When item number 5001 is added to the library, the Content Organizer can automatically create a new folder and put the document in that folder. All of this routing and folder creation can be handled automatically without further user intervention. After a document is uploaded and the required metadata applied, the upload form displays a Url to a document that has been routed so the user knows where to find it in the future.”

Document IDs

SharePoint now provides the ability to automatically assign a unique ID to documents as they are created or uploaded that can be used to locate them no matter where they are stored or moved in the farm.  It works for single documents and the new Document Set.  Blair Biggens discusses this in more detail.

Also very nice: it’s not a GUID but a bit more friendlier, shorter ID code!