SharePoint List Scalability

Question

I am particularly interested in Document Libraries, but in terms of general SharePoint lists, can anyone answer the following...?

1. What is the maximum number of

Answer 1

The whitepaper I found most useful was linked from the resource posted by user mbowles above. The direct link is...

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=95450&clcid=0x409

Answer 2

In SharePoint v.2:

• Max # list items : 2000 (per folder level)
• Max lists per site : 2000 is a "reasonable" number
• Effect when we reach the limit : Exponential degradation of performance.

More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287743.aspx

In SharePoint v.3:

• Max # list items : 2000 (per view, you can have million items as long as you don't display in a single view more than 2000 items)
• Max lists per site : 2000 is a "reasonable" number
• Effect when we reach the limit : Exponential degradation of performance when we enumerate more than 2000 items using the OM. An alternative is to use Search API or CAML queries.

More info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287790.aspx

Answer 3

The "2000 limit" expressed above doesn't hold.

Please take a look at this document for more exact answers to your questions.

I personally experimented what the document describes.