Increasing the maximum number of files allowed on a volume

Volumes have a limit on the number of files they can contain. You can increase this limit using the maxfiles command, but you cannot decrease it once you have increased it.

Considerations

The storage system automatically sets the maximum number of files for a newly created volume based on the amount of disk space in the volume. The storage system increases the maximum number of files when you add a disk to a volume, up to a 1 TB volume size. For volumes larger than 1 TB, you must use the maxfiles command to increase the maximum number of files if needed. The requirement for manually increasing the limit prevents a storage system with terabytes of storage from creating a larger than necessary inode file, which wastes storage.

You might want to increase the number of allowed files if you get an error message telling you that you are out of inodes (data structures containing information about files). Doing so should be necessary only if you are using an unusually large number of small files or if your volume is extremely large.

Note: Use caution when increasing the maximum number of files, because after you increase this number, you can never decrease it. As new files are created, the file system consumes the additional disk space required to hold the inodes for the additional files; there is no way for the storage system to release that disk space.

Steps

Enter the following command:maxfiles vol_name max_num_files
Note: Inodes are added in blocks, and five percent of the total number of inodes is reserved for internal use. If the requested increase in the number of files is too small to require a new inode block to be added, the maxfiles value is not increased. If this happens, repeat the command with a larger value for max_num_files.
You can confirm the new maximum number of files, as well as the number of files currently present in the volume, by entering the following command: maxfiles vol_name
Note: The value returned reflects only the number of files that can be created by users; the inodes reserved for internal use are not included in this number.

Parent topic: General volume operations