Introduction
In this article, I will compare the limits of SharePoint 2016 Content Database with other SharePoint versions.
Boundaries, Thresholds and Supported limits
Before we getting started, you should first know what are the types of Limit.
- Boundaries: Static limits that cannot be exceeded by design.
- Thresholds: Configurable limits that can be exceeded to accommodate specific requirements.
- Supported limits: Configurable limits that have been set by default to a tested value.
Content Database Limits for SharePoint
The below table lists the recommended guidelines for Content Database in SharePoint 2016,2013,2010,2007.
| Limits/Version | Limit Type | SharePoint 07 | SharePoint 10 | SharePoint 13 | SharePoint 2016 |
| Content Database Per farm | Supported | x | x | 500 | 500 |
| Content Database Per Web Application | Supported | 100 | 300 | x | x |
| Site Collection Per Content Database | Supported | 50,000 | 5,000 Max | 10,000 Max | 10,000 Max |
| | | 2,000 recommended | 2,500 non-Personal site collections and 7,500 Personal Sites, or 10,000 Personal Sites alone | Strongly recommend limiting the number of site collections in a content database to 5,000. However, up to 10,000 site collections in a database are supported. |
| Content Database Size (General Usage scenario) | Supported | 100 GB | 200 GB | 200 GB | 200 GB up to 1TB |
| Content Database Size (All Usage scenario) | Supported | > 100 GB | 4 TB | 4 TB | 4 TB |
| Content database size (document archive scenario) | Supported | x | No explicit content database limit | No explicit content database limit | No explicit content database limit |
| Content Database Items | Supported | 60 Million items including documents and list items | 60 Million items including documents and list items | 60 Million items including documents and list items | 60 Million items including documents and list items |
| Remote BLOB Storage | Boundary | x | < 20 milliseconds | Time to first byte of any response from the NAS should remain within 40 milliseconds 95% of the time. | Time to first byte of any response from the NAS should remain within 40 milliseconds 95% of the time. |
Note - X indicates this information is not mentioned in TechNet.
Conclusion
In this article, I've compared the SharePoint 2016 Content Database limits with SharePoint 2013 / 2010 / 2007.
Reference