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  • EXT3 supports 32,000 subdirectories.
  • EXT4 supports 64,000...
  • I've read about people having millions of subdirectories on the XFS filesystem, but can't find an exact value referenced anywhere.

How many subdirectories does the XFS filesystem support?

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What "subdirectories"? Number of entries within a (root) directory? Nesting depth? – syneticon-dj Feb 16 at 21:15
Drive is mounted at /files. There are directories numbered 1 through n within /files. – T. Brian Jones Feb 16 at 21:17
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There are of course other practical considerations....like the total length of a filename allowed which may be far less than the number of subdirectories allowed.

Anyway, a subdirectory is just a file anyway, so isn't the absolute maximum number of subdirectories is theoretically the max number of i-nodes on a specific filesystem?

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It's in the millions, I believe.

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I do not think there is a hard limit except for the maximum file size of 2^64-1 bytes. But there would be a couple of "soft" limits - searching a large directory might become inefficient due to high CPU and/or memory intensity.

From the XFS project site at SGI (a bit aged already):

XFS uses efficient tree structures for fast searches and rapid space allocation. XFS continues to deliver rapid response times, even for directories with tens of thousands of entries.

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