The Art of SQL Server FILESTREAM - Red Gate Software

Chapter 12: Planning, Configuration and Best PracticesIf short file names are not disabled, you can disable them by running fsutil.exe withthe set parameter (Listing 12-2).fsutil.exe behavior set disable8dot3 1Listing 12-2:Changing the short file names setting.You must reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.While doing the research for this chapter, I came across a number of articles whichmentioned that disabling short file names does not really provide any performancebenefits. To verify this, I ran some tests which created a large number of files on a folder,and compared the performance differences.The test script created 100,000 files in 20 laps, each lap creating 5,000 text files in afolder. At first, the test script was executed with short file names enabled. The scriptwas run three times, and the average time it took to complete each lap was recorded.Then the test was run another three times with short file name generation disabled.(A server reboot was required for the change to take effect). My testing, summarized inTable 12-1, showed a considerable performance improvement after disabling 8.3 file nameson the system.LapDuration (in seconds)with short file names:File namesEnabledDisabled1 4 1 File_1_1.txt to File_1_5000.txt2 10 3 File_2_1.txt to File_2_5000.txt3 9 4 File_3_1.txt to File_3_5000.txt4 10 2 File_4_1.txt to File_4_5000.txt441