Is there any inherent Subversion repository size limit

[PixelNovel]

What is the current situation with the SVN repository size limit?

I\'ve heard from some sources that Subversion cannot handle repositories larger than 500GB, though I couldn\'t find any confirmation of this anywhere.

I\'ve found this discussion where it\'s mentioned that the only limitations of an FSFS-based repository are the limitation of the underlying file system. Is this still true?

Are there any reasons why repositories cannot grow over 1 TB?

Thank you in advance,
Anatoly
PixelNovel
www.pixelnovel.com

[jbailey]

Hi Anatoly,

I\'ve seen discussions elsewhere which suggested that there wasn\'t a limit in size, hence my writing this in our wiki:

I\'ll try and get hold of one of our committers for some confirmation though!

[PixelNovel]

Thanks James,

A confirmation from the core committers would be great if it\'s possible. Also, do you think it\'s possible to get the answer into the official Subversion FAQ (http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html)?

[jbailey]

Hi Anatoly,

I\'m sure Hyrum (Subversion Release Manager) will be able to answer that for you.

I\'ll ask him when he\'s awake!

[julianfoad]

I am not aware of an overall repository size limit.

[philip]

Subversion uses 64 bit values internally for file offsets, that\'s up in the exabyte range way beyond 1TB. If you use a BDB repository then BDB has its own limits, 16TB by default. The strings file in a BDB repository is the file most likely to hit that limit, it\'s often more than half the total repository size.

In practice any limit is more likely to occur in the OS/filesystem. A standard ext3 filesystem on Linux has a 2TB limit on individual files so a really big BDB repository might need to use a different filesystem.

The big files in an FSFS repository tend to be the commits that add lots of large files. Commits that add gigabytes produce gigabyte revision files. If you pack a repository with thousands of such commits you could get terabyte sized pack files. Subversion is capable of handling that but once again the OS/filesystem may be a limit.

[philip]

Double post.

[PixelNovel]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Do you think it makes sense to publish this in the FAQ?

[imported_mpoole]

I\'ve updated the FAQ on the wiki here:

http://subversion.wandisco.com/wiki/...ki_by_WANdisco

http://subversion.wandisco.com/wiki/...imum_disk_size

[stefan]

And if you compile the svn sources yourself, make sure to compile the apr libs with big file support. Otherwise file sizes are limited to 2GB.