alfresco store all documents in one node or in multiple nodes and how does this affect performance

[robjkamp]

We are using alfresco as document storage component for other applications. We are wondering of storing all documents in one node and using metadata to create 'virtual folders' using the search API's might work.

The primary question is: is there a limit on the number of files/nodes within a node?

[afaust]

You mean "all documents in one folder"? Please do not do that. Just alone from a database performance perspective this is absolutely not recommended. Typically you should aim for at most a couple of thousand elements in one folder. If you don't care about the actual structure, you can simply use some kind of configured rule to automatically create a date-based structure to separate the contents based on the date they were created. You can still use "Virtual Folder" for providing an alternative user access to the documents in your structure...