SharePoint List Scalability

Question

I am particularly interested in Document Libraries, but in terms of general SharePoint lists, can anyone answer the following...?

1. What is the maximum number of items that a SharePoint list can contain?
2. What is the maximum number of lists that a single SharePoint server can host?
3. When the number of items in the list approaches the maximum, does filtering slow down, and if so, what can be done to improve it?

Answer 1

Link To Resource

Answer 2

http://blah.winsmarts.com/2008-4-SharePoint_limits.aspx

for #3: you can index specific columns in a list, but you should still keep the sizes down.

Answer 3

In SharePoint v.2:

• Max # list items : 2000 (per folder level)
• Max lists per site : 2000 is a "reasonable" number
• Effect when we reach the limit : Exponential degradation of performance.

More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287743.aspx

In SharePoint v.3:

• Max # list items : 2000 (per view, you can have million items as long as you don't display in a single view more than 2000 items)
• Max lists per site : 2000 is a "reasonable" number
• Effect when we reach the limit : Exponential degradation of performance when we enumerate more than 2000 items using the OM. An alternative is to use Search API or CAML queries.

More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287790.aspx

Answer 4

The exact answers have already been given, however I do feel I should add this warning:
This might be one of those situations where if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
So if you find yourself approaching the limits posted earlier, think long and hard about what you are trying to do, and make sure you're not doing it wrong.

Answer 5

The whitepaper I found most useful was linked from the resource posted by user mbowles above. The direct link is...

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=95450&clcid=0x409

Answer 6

Beware, the Performance of SiteDataQuery degrades heavily he more subsites you have. A hundred subsites can take 20 seconds to query.

Answer 7

The "2000 limit" expressed above doesn't hold.

Please take a look at this document for more exact answers to your questions.

I personally experimented what the document describes.

Answer 8

There is documented guidance for Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 regarding the maximum size of lists and list containers. For typical customer scenarios in which the standard Office SharePoint Server 2007 browser-based user interface is used, the recommendation is that a single list should not have more than 2,000 items per list container. A container in this case means the root of the list, as well as any folders in the list — a folder is a container because other list items are stored within it. A folder can contain items from the list as well as other folders, and each subfolder can contain more of each, and so on. For example, that means that you could have a list with 1,990 items in the root of the site, 10 folders that each contain 2,000 items, and so on. The maximum number of items supported in a list with recursive folders is 5 million items.

Answer 9

2000 items in the list root folder doesn't sound right. It would make list useless. We have at list 20000 items in the list and we don't use folder.

Answer 10

I have 31,000 items in a list but 100 Items per page view.