SVN performance after many revisions

Question

My project is currently using a svn repository which gains several hundred new revisions per day. The repository resides on a Win2k3-server and is served through Apache/mod_

Answer 1

I personally haven't dealt with Subversion repositories with codebases bigger than 80K LOC for the actual project. The biggest repository I've actually had was about 1.2 gigs, but this included all of the libraries and utilities that the project uses.

I don't think the day to day usage will be affected that much, but anything that needs to look through the different revisions might slow down a tad. It may not even be noticeable.

Now, from a sys admin point of view, there are a few things that can help you minimize performance bottlenecks. Since Subversion is mostly a file-based system, you can do this:

• Put the actual repositories in a different drive
• Make sure that no file locking apps, other than svn, are working on the drive above
• Make the drives at least 7,500 RPM. You could try getting 10,000 RPM, but it may be overkill
• Update the LAN to gigabit, if everybody is in the same office.

This may be overkill for your situation, but that's what I've usually done for other file-intensive applications.

If you ever "outgrow" Subversion, then Perforce will be your next step up. It's hands down the fastest source control app for very large projects.