SharePoint 2010 SP1 Increases Content Database Size Limits

With the release of SharePoint 2010 SP1 Microsoft changed the supported data size limits for SharePoint content databases.

Prior to SP1 

SP1

For a SharePoint content database up to 4 TB you need to additionally plan for the following two requirements:

• Requires disk sub-system performance of 0.25 IOPS per GB, 2 IOPS per GB is recommended for optimal performance.
• Requires plans for high availability, disaster recovery, future capacity, and performance testing.

For a SharePoint content database over 4TB specifically for a Document Archive scenario you are required to additionally plan for the following:

• SharePoint sites must be based on Document Center or Records Center site templates.
• Less than 5% of content is actively read from each month and less than 1% of content is actively written to.
• Do not use alerts, workflows, link fix-ups, or item level security on any SharePoint objects in the content database. Document archive content databases can accept documents as a result of Content Routing workflow.

Read more on SharePoint Server 2010 capacity management: Software boundaries and limits.