Recommended configuration for SharePoint On prem Content store

Question

Hi,

I am new to SharePoint prem setups & would like to hear your thoughts on whether it's a good idea to store the content/documents in the Database content table for organizations that have document volumes of 50TB+ or if there is a better configuration.

If an entity stores the content in a database, this will make the database very large, making it a challenge for the DBA to back up & manage the database.

Any thoughts or suggestions on the best way to handle this situation?

Answer 1

Hi @Ruden Braganza ,

Welcome to Q&A forum!

For very large document volumes (50TB+), storing all the files directly in your SQL content databases is generally not recommended because it can lead to unwieldy database sizes and increased backup, maintenance, and recovery challenges. Instead, organizations typically adopt a strategy that minimizes the amount of binary content stored in the database.Here are some recommendations:

1. Use Remote BLOB Storage (RBS)

RBS is a set of APIs that allows SharePoint to offload the storage of large binary objects (BLOBs) from the SQL Server database to external storage. In effect, only metadata (pointers and references) is stored in the content database, while the actual files are stored separately.

Advantages:

• Smaller Databases: By keeping the bulk of the data outside SQL Server, your content databases remain smaller and easier to back up and manage.
• Performance and Scalability: Offloading large BLOBs to cheaper, scale‑out storage can improve overall performance.
• Cost Savings: You can use cost‑effective storage solutions (like SAN or even cloud storage gateways) for BLOBs instead of investing heavily in high‑performance SQL Server disks.

There are two installation and configuration methods for you to choose from:

Install and configure RBS with FILESTREAM in a SharePoint Server farm

Install and configure RBS with a 3rd party provider for SharePoint Server

2. Partition Content Across Multiple Content Databases

Even with RBS enabled, it’s best to design your SharePoint farm so that content is spread across multiple content databases. Microsoft’s best practices for SharePoint typically recommend keeping individual content databases within a certain size range (for example, under 200GB to 500GB for optimal performance, though the “supported” limits can be higher).

How to Partition:

• Site Collection Planning: Organize your intranet into multiple site collections. Each site collection can have its own content database, allowing you to scale out the storage.
• Database Allocation: Configure your web application to automatically create new content databases once an existing one reaches a specified threshold. This helps avoid a “monster” database that is hard to manage.

Using RBS together with a well‑planned content database architecture is the recommended approach for environments with very high document volumes. This configuration not only reduces the strain on SQL Server but also makes day‑to‑day maintenance (backups, restores, indexing, etc.) more manageable for your DBA team.

Hope these information helps.

Please do let us know if you have any further queries.

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