... Many filesystems (e.g., ext2/3) bog down once you start getting more than a hundred or so entries in a directory.

Actually, I have found VFAT to pale in comparison to ext3 and even ext2. ReiserFS should be even better i've heard. YMMV, of course - RAM/processor(s) etc.

Update:

A well-known approach to this 'many files' problem is to create a n-level directory structure based on filenames. File abc goes into a/b/abc, def goes into d/e/def etc. (for n=2). Filenames are then typically randomly generated - and if they're not you can use some transformation to create input for the directory. Reportedly, ReiserFS does this internally.

---Lars

In reply to Re^2: Performance Trap - Opening/Closing Files Inside a Loop by EverLast
in thread Performance Trap - Opening/Closing Files Inside a Loop by Limbic~Region

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