Capacity Management - Content database limits

Limit	Maximum value	Limit type	Notes
Content database size (general usage scenarios)	200 GB per content database	Supported	We strongly recommended limiting the size of content databases to 200 GB, except when the circumstances in the following rows in this table apply. If you are using Remote BLOB Storage (RBS), the total volume of remote BLOB storage and metadata in the content database must not exceed this limit.
Content database size (all usage scenarios)	4 TB per content database	Supported	Content databases of up to 4 TB are supported when the following requirements are met: Disk sub-system performance of 0.25 IOPs per GB. 2 IIOPs per GB is recommended for optimal performance. You must have developed plans for high availability, disaster recovery, future capacity, and performance testing. You should also carefully consider the following factors: Requirements for backup and restore may not be met by the native SharePoint Server 2010 backup for content databases larger than 200 GB. It is recommended to evaluate and test SharePoint Server 2010 backup and alternative backup solutions to determine the best solution for your specific environment. It is strongly recommended to have proactive skilled administrator management of the SharePoint Server 2010 and SQL Server installations. The complexity of customizations and configurations on SharePoint Server 2010 may necessitate refactoring (or splitting) of data into multiple content databases. Seek advice from a skilled professional architect and perform testing to determine the optimum content database size for your implementation. Examples of complexity may include custom code deployments, use of more than 20 columns in property promotion, or features listed as not to be used in the over 4 TB section below. Refactoring of site collections allows for scale out of a SharePoint Server 2010 implementation across multiple content databases. This permits SharePoint Server 2010 implementations to scale indefinitely. This refactoring will be easier and faster when content databases are less than 200 GB. It is suggested that for ease of backup and restore that individual site collections within a content database be limited to 100 GB. Important: Content databases of over 4 TB, except for use in document archive scenarios (described in the row below), are not recommended. Upgrading of site collections within these content databases is likely to be very difficult and time consuming. It is strongly recommended that you scale out across multiple content databases, rather than exceed 4 TB of data in a single content database.
Content database size (document archive scenario)	No explicit content database limit	Supported	Content databases with no explicit size limit for use in document archive scenarios are supported when the following requirements are met: You must meet all requirements from the “Content database size (all usage scenarios)” limit earlier in this table, and you should ensure that you have carefully considered all the factors discussed in the Notes field of that limit. SharePoint Server 2010 sites must be based on Document Center or Records Center site templates. Less than 5% of the content in the content database is accessed each month on average, and less than 1% of content is modified or written each month on average. Do not use alerts, workflows, link fix-ups, or item level security on any SharePoint Server 2010 objects in the content database. Note: Document archive content databases can be configured to accept documents from Content Routing workflows.
Content database items	60 million items including documents and list items	Supported	The largest number of items per content database that has been tested on SharePoint Server 2010 is 60 million items, including documents and list items. If you plan to store more than 60 million items in SharePoint Server 2010, you must deploy multiple content databases.
Site collections per content database	2,000 recommended 5,000 maximum	Supported	We strongly recommended limiting the number of site collections in a content database to 2,000. However, up to 5,000 site collections in a database are supported. These limits relate to speed of upgrade. The larger the number of site collections in a database, the slower the upgrade. The limit on the number of site collections in a database is subordinate to the limit on the size of a content database that has more than one site collection (200 GB). Therefore, as the number of site collections in a database increases, the average size of the site collections it contains must decrease. Exceeding the 2,000 site collection limit puts you at risk of longer downtimes during upgrades. If you plan to exceed 2,000 site collections, we recommend that you have a clear upgrade strategy, and obtain additional hardware to speed up upgrades and software updates that affect databases. To set the warning level for the number of sites in a content database, use the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Set-SPContentDatabase with the -WarningSiteCount parameter.
Remote BLOB Storage (RBS) storage subsystem on Network Attached Storage (NAS)	Time to first byte of any response from the NAS cannot exceed 20 milliseconds	Boundary	When SharePoint Server 2010 is configured to use RBS, and the BLOBs reside on NAS storage, consider the following boundary. From the time that SharePoint Server 2010 requests a BLOB, until it receives the first byte from the NAS, no more than 20 milliseconds can pass.