Organizing Your Content

Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.

When organizing your content, you must decide how many sitecollections, sites, and document libraries you need.

Site Collections

A site collection is a set of Web sites on a virtual serverwhere all subsites have the same owner and share all settingsspecified in SharePoint Central Administration. A site collectioncontains a top-level Web site that can contain multiple subsites.There can be multiple site collections on each virtual server.

All sites within a site collection use the same contentdatabase. If the expected traffic for the combined sites in a sitecollection exceeds the available throughput, separate the sitesinto multiple site collections. The site with heavy traffic canthen be moved to a separate content database. If throughput is notan issue, it is not necessary to use more than one site collectionfor related files. Managing related files within one sitecollection allows easier navigation and control of security.

Note: You must be a member of theAdministrators group on the local server or a member of theSharePoint administrators group to create a site collection.Alternatively, if you have enabled Self-Service Site Creation, youcan allow end users to create their own site collections to whichthey can migrate files.

Sites Within a Site Collection

In general, create sites so you can place documents and liststhat are related in the same site. This makes navigation moreconvenient and ensures that all related documents will be includedin search results. However, if a site contains more than 1,000document libraries and lists, performance begins to degrade.

Note: If Self-Service SiteCreation is enabled for a virtual server, you must belong to a sitegroup that has the Use Self-Service Site Creation right to create asite collection. That right is turned on in all default sitegroups. If Self-Service Site Creation is not turned on, you mustbelong to a site group that has the Create Subsite right to createa site. The Create Subsite right is included by default in theAdministrator site group.

Document Libraries Within a Site

Document libraries can contain custom properties that storemetadata about the files in the libraries. Document libraries alsoprovide fine-grained security for granting access to files. Anyfiles that can use the same set of properties and security settingscan be stored in the same document library. (You can use views andfilters to allow users to display any set of properties that theywant to.) However, if a set of files requires a unique set ofproperties, it will need a separate document library. Similarly, ifa set of files requires unique user permissions, that set will alsorequire a different document library. Other settings that are perdocument library include file versioning, content approval, thedefault document template, and any event code written for thedocument library.

Note: You must be a memberof a site group with the Manage Lists right to create and changedocument libraries. The Manage Lists right is included by defaultin the Web Designer and Administrator site groups.

Folders Within a Document Library

The folder structure of a document library is usually similar tothe folder structure of a typical file store. For optimalperformance, it is recommended that each folder contain fewer than1,000 files. Performance and ease of navigation will degrade as thenumber of files in a folder increases. The depth of the folderstructure might also be limited by the number of characters in thefile and folder name. There can be no more than 260 totalcharacters in the URL for a file in a document library. The maximumfile or folder name length is 128 characters, including theextension.

If a folder structure has few files but lots of subfolders,consider adding properties to the document library. Views can thenbe added to the document library instead of subfolders. Forexample, create a property named "Team member" for aTeam Documents folder instead of a subfolder for each teammember.

Note: You must be a memberof a site group with the Add Items right to add files to a documentlibrary. The Add Items right is included by default in everybuilt-in site group except the Reader site group.