Postby ConvertFromOldNGs » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:11 pm
by cnwjhp1 >> Thu, 20 Sep 2007 21:39:02 GMT
Short answer: it doesn't usually make much difference to runtime. What does matter is that you keep already-accessed data in Windows file-system cache (by having enough ram), and that the data is stored in a small area of the disk rather than scattered all across it. Assuming you are using NTFS, there isn't much control of that. Even in the same file, NTFS may scatter it around. Defragging is more important than which map file you store it in. You can help prevent NTFS fragmentation by setting these .ini file options to something reasonable:
[PersistentDb]
DefInitialFileSize=100K
DefFileGrowthIncrement=1M
Dean mentioned the main reason to use separate map files - to help reduce reorg times, and make the files more manageable. One system I am involved with has 5 collections around 10gb each, and the class is 22gb, so those were all split out separately, but only for reorg and operational reasons.