Ideal directory structure for web application

Posted by rno on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by rno
Published on 2010-04-16T08:54:00Z Indexed on 2010/04/16 19:13 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 288

Filed under:

ext3

|

directory-structure

I'm about to create a user based website and will have to store photo, docs and other data for each user.

If I take a silly number like 1 000 000 000 users, I believe than one folder with 1 000 000 000 won't be the fastest thing in the world! So I was thinking of creating something like

1st level : [a-z] 2nd level : [a-z] 3rd level : [a-z]

Therefor bobby will be in /b/o/b/by

But this also mean that it won't be spread equaly, because there will be very few user starting with a z and many more with a m,s,l ...

so I was thinking of using a user id such as "000000000001", "000000000001" etc...

1st level : [000-999] 2nd level : [000-999] 3rd level : [000-999]

therefore data of the user 000000000001 will be store in /data/000/000/000/001 then I will be sure to have a maximum of 1000 folder in each level.

What do you guys think about it, what I should do or not do ?

The server will be running Centos 5.4 with EXT3 on raid 1, if the I/O get's too bad i will probably go for a raid 10.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about ext3

RHEL - blocked FC remote port time out: saving binding

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
My Server went into a faulty state since the database could not write on the partition. I found out that the partition went into Read Only mode. Finally to fix it, I had to do a hard reboot. Linux 2.6.18-164.el5PAE #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 15:59:11 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux /var/log/messages Oct… >>> More
Proper way to set permissions on an external disk's ext3 partition

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a new external disk and just made an ext3 partition on it. I'm wondering what's the best way to set permissions on it (so that it's rw for certain users). I guess I could chmod ... /dev/sdb1 but I was thinking of a more dynamic way (kind of like uid= and gid= options for vfat and such). >>> More
ext3 slowing down on writes on linux 2.6.18

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
i'm running into a problem where writing to a file will cause a 5 to 15 second pause, this occurs only on writes. So far i have remounted the filesystem with data=writeback as an option, and set /sys/block/sdb/queue/max_sectors_kb to 64 to shorten the queue. Are there any other things i can try to… >>> More
Immutable hard links on ext3/4?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
In my research on file versioning at the fs level, snapshotting, and related ideas, I took a look at hard-links and exactly what they are and how they behave. Using rsync you can get a pretty slick poor man's snapshotting system up and running on file systems that don't natively support it. But,… >>> More
problem when view the super block in ext3 file system

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I tried to view the superblock by command "dd" in ext3 file system. dd if=/dev/sda3 bs=4096 skip=1 count=1 of=superblock But the result in superblock file is not correct(I compare the value of Inodes count I got from dumpe2fs). The device file /dev/sda3 is started at the boot block and then the… >>> More

Related posts about directory-structure

how to stop directory structure from being viewable in J2EE apps

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
in a J2EE app if user explicitly takes out the the ending page name then what is the best way to not show the directory structure? Example: /mycoolapp/somefolder/test.jsp /mycoolapp/somefolder/ -- this will show all the files under 'somefolder' What is the best way to redirect or show the user… >>> More
Tool to Create Annotated Directory Structure Documentation

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I've got a moderately complicated application that has been developed primarily by me, and I'm getting ready to bring a few more developers in, and I'm thinking of various forms of documentation that might be helpful. I want to communicate information about the directory structure/layout of the… >>> More
TortoiseSVN: how to set up projects on a existing directory structure of source code

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have an old pet project I want to revive (haven't had enough time for it last year - small kid - you know) - so restored old copy of my dev folder from archive, but since I have rebuilt my machine since when - I can't remember what needs to be done now. I installed the latest version of TortoiseSVN… >>> More
c# (wcf) architecture file and directory structure (and instantiation)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello and thanks for any assistance. I have a wcf service that I'm trying to properly modularize. I'm interested in finding out if there is a better way or implementing the file and directory structure along with instanciatation, is there a more appropriate way of abstraction that I may be missing… >>> More
How can I copy files with timestamps between 2 times and preserve the directory structure

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to copy files that have timestamps from the time the script begins to run and a hour previous. So I am basically trying to emulate robocopy but with minage and maxage going down to the exact time rather than days. So far I have this in powershell: $now = Get-Date $previousHour = $now.AddHours(-1) "Copying… >>> More