SharePoint Best Practices
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  • SharePoint Best Practices Library by SPDocKit
  • Configuration
    • App Configuration
      • App Services Configured
      • Apps Configured
    • Distributed Cache
      • Appfabric Patched
      • Cache Cluster State
      • Cache Running
      • SharePoint Distributed Cache Size 2013
      • Distributed Cache Collocation Compliance
    • Security
      • Farm Account is not Local Admin
      • Office Web Apps HTTPS
    • Solutions
      • Solution Assembly Deployment Valid
    • Servers
      • Expired Certificates
      • Loopback Disabled
      • Minrole Compliance
  • Databases
    • ModelDB
      • ModelDB Files Autogrowth
      • ModelDB Files Initial Size
      • ModelDB Recovery Model
    • TempDB
      • TempDB Files
      • TempDB Files Configuration
      • TempDB Recovery Model
      • TempDB Response Times
      • TempDB Size
    • Content Database Autogrowth
    • Content Database Capacity
    • Database Files
    • Disk Allocation Size
    • Max Degree of Parallelism
    • SQL Alias
    • SQL Server Memory – SQL Server Memory Allocation Best Practices
  • Hardware Requirements
    • Free Disk Space
    • SharePoint 2013 Server and Hardware Requirements
  • Maintenance
    • Backup
      • Content Database Backups
      • Farm Backup Configured
      • Farm Backup History
    • Misc
      • Farm Accounts Used Interactively
      • PDF iFilter Installed
      • Upgrade Ready
  • Monitoring and Logging
    • Diagnostic Log Path
    • Enable Usage and Health Data Collection
    • SharePoint IIS Log Path
    • Restrict Trace Log Disk Space Usage
    • Search Index Path
    • ULS Active
    • Usage and Health Log Path
    • Verbose Logging Enabled
  • Service Applications
    • Search
      • Crawl Account Search Permission
      • Incremental Search Configuration
      • PDF Extension Added to Search Application
      • Search Content Sources
      • Search Running
    • UPA
      • My Site Configured
      • UPA Up and Running
    • Web Analytics
      • Event Collection Configured
      • Web Analytics Services Started
    • Application Proxies
    • Authentication Providers
    • Exchange Task Sync
    • Multiple Service Applications
    • Sandboxed Code Service
    • SharePoint 2013 Secure Store Service Configured
    • State Service
  • SharePoint Software Boundaries and Limits
    • SharePoint Software Boundaries and Limits Overview
    • Limits by Feature
      • Search Limits
        • Authoritative Pages
        • Content Sources
        • Crawl Components
        • Crawl Databases
        • Crawl Rules
        • Index Partitions
        • Managed Properties
        • Property Databases
        • Scope Rules Count per Search Service Application
        • Scope Rules Count per Search Scope
        • Search Topology Limits
        • Sharepoint Search Service Applications
        • Start Addresses
      • User Profile Limits
        • User Profile Count
      • Visio Services Limits
        • File Size of Visio Web Drawings – Max Web Drawing Size
        • Visio Services Cache Age
        • Visio Web Drawing Recalculation Time-out
      • Word Automation Services
        • Conversion Job Size
        • Conversion Start Frequency
    • Limits by Hierarchy
      • Content Database Limits
        • Content Database Size
        • Number of Content Databases
        • Site Collections per Content Database
      • Server Limits
        • Number of Application Pools
      • Site Collection Limits
        • Number of Site Collections
        • Site Collection Size
        • Web Site
      • Web Application Limits
        • Content Databases
        • Managed Paths
        • Number of Web Applications
        • Site Collections
  • Site Collection Health
    • Farm Features Duplicate IDs
    • Features Duplicate IDs
    • SharePoint Site Collection Upgrade – Upgrade SharePoint 2010 to 2013
    • Site Collections Duplicate IDs
    • Web Application Features Duplicate IDs
  • Updates
    • SharePoint
      • Build Revoked
      • Farm in Trial
      • Is SharePoint Up to Date
      • SharePoint 2013 Language Packs Up to Date
      • Office Web Apps Up to Date - Office Web App Servers
      • Product Supported
    • Servers
      • Sharepoint Server Upgrade Required
      • Windows Updates
      • Hotfixes per Server Role
        • Application Servers Hotfixes
        • DB Servers Hotfixes
        • Distributed Cache Servers Hotfixes
        • Failover Servers Hotfixes
        • Search Servers Hotfixes
        • WFE Servers Hotfixes
  • Web Applications
    • Caching
      • BLOB Caching Enabled
      • Object Cache User Accounts
      • Publishing Cache
    • AppPool User in Performance Log Group
    • Batch Compilation Disabled
    • Web Application in Debug Mode - Web.config Debugging How To
    • Web Application URL Check
    • Web Applications Without Sites
    • SharePoint Web.config Files Equality
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  • Issue description
  • Explanation
  • Solution
  • Additional information

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  1. SharePoint Software Boundaries and Limits
  2. Limits by Hierarchy
  3. Web Application Limits

Content Databases

Content Databases best practices report by SPDocKit determines whether the web applications have a large number of content databases.

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Last updated 1 year ago

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Issue description

This check determines whether the web applications have a large number of content databases.

Explanation

SharePoint Server uses SQL Server to store configuration and user data. Therefore it is extremely important for SQL Server to be as fast and optimized as possible. The size of a content database and a number of logical units within the database like site collections, sites, and items can have an impact on the performance of the system. Also, the number of content databases associated with a single web application can introduce some manageability issues.

The maximum number of content databases per farm is 500. With 500 content databases per web application, end user operations, such as opening the site or site collections are not affected. But administrative operations, such as creating a new site collection, will experience a decrease in performance. We recommend that you use Windows PowerShell to manage the web application when a large number of content databases are present, because the management interface might become slow and difficult to navigate.

Solution

If you are experiencing an issue, try moving site collections to some less used content databases and delete content databases you managed to free up. Consider also that, with 200 GB per content database and a maximum of 500 content databases per farm, SharePoint will support up to 100 TB of data.

To move a site collection to a different content database, start SharePoint 2013 Management Shell as an Administrator and run the following cmdlet:

Move-SPSite http://webapp/sites/sitename -DestinationDatabase ContentDb2

To achieve the same result in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2007, follow the procedure described in the following articles:

Additional information

Additional information can be found in the following articles:

Software boundaries and limits for SharePoint 2013
New-SPContentDatabase
Move-SPSite
Move site collections between databases in SharePoint 2013
Addcontentdb: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)
Move site collections to a new database (split a content database) (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
Addcontentdb: Stsadm operation (Office SharePoint Server)
Move site collections to a new database (split a content database) (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0)
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