[Zope] How many objects can ZODB hold?

Shane Hathaway shane@digicool.com
Thu, 15 Feb 2001 15:17:42 -0500


sbabu@tnc.org wrote:
> Probably a dumb question: I know ZODB stores everything
> in an Object table. So, this table probably has a fixed length
> primary key. To maintain this, let us say there should be
> a counter which tracks the number of records in the table.
>
> The question is, is there any limit to this? Like Zope can hold
> 1million objects?

First, the theoretical limitations: Currently an OID for FileStorage is
64 bits.  You might have a problem if you could create 1 billion objects
per second continuously over 544 years.  But FileStorage is not the only
way to store objects.  Using existing alternate storage implementations,
you can use Oracle or even create one file per object.

Now the practical limitations: some operating systems, like Linux 2.2.x,
are limited to 2 GB files.  FileStorage has run into this.  But the
Linux kernel version 2.4.x has lifted this limitation.  But it probably
isn't wise to rely on FileStorage for many GB of data.  You'd want to
use OracleStorage or the developing BerkeleyStorage.

Shane