19,000 thumbnails in 1 folder

[bnashenas1984]

Hi everyone
I have a website with 19,000 thumbnails (.jpg format), Not bigger than 5 kb each.

I was wondering if putting all of them in 1 folder might cause any issue for the server?

I mean does it slow down the server? If so, what should I do? What does website like bytes.com do with thousands of users (profile pictures)?

Any information will be appreciated.

Thanks / Behzad

[Atli]

Hey.

I guess it would depend on the server, or more specifically, the file-system used by the hard drive. On most modern file systems, like ext3, ext4 or NTFS you should be fine up to at least 30k files.

It is generally a good idea, though, to not store more than a few thousand in the same directory. My rule of thumbs is to make it no more than a thousand images per directory.

A simple way to have you PHP code do this automatically is to give each image a numeric ID and use that to route the actual file into it's proper directory.
[code=php]// Insert the image into the db as usual.
$sql = "INSERT INTO whatever ...";
$result = mysql_query($sq l);

// Fetch the ID of the row, and divide by the max number
// of files allowed per directory to get the number of
// the directory to place the file in.
$maxFilesPerDir = 1000;
$idOfImage = mysql_insert_id ();
$dirNumber = floor($idOfImag e / $maxFilesPerDir );

// Determine the path to place the file into.
$fileDir = "/var/www/images/" . $dirNumber . "/";
if(!file_exists ($fileDir)) {
// Creates the dir if it doesn't exist already.
mkdir($fileDir, 0644);
}

// Save the file using it's ID. They are unique by
// definition, so it makes sure there aren't conflicts.
$fileLocation = $fileDir . $idOfImage . ".jpeg";
if(!rename($pat hToOldLocationO fFile, $fileLocation)) {
die("Failed to move file to it's new location!");
}

// NOTE! Use move_uploaded_f ile if these are uploaded
// files. As you are talking about thumbs, I assume you
// are generating them yourself.[/code]

[bnashenas1984]

Thanks Atli
That was very useful.