We don't have PDM, would need to use Enterprise, and its just not something that can be afforded.

That out of the way, we store all files in sub-folders based on the first 3 digits of the numeric filename.  Easy to browse and find files.  However, you can see the drawback.  There's a lot of in and out of folders when bringing up an assembly that uses a lot of parts.  Right now its about 15000 files in 18Gb of data.  The folders are replicated to 2 other servers.  We run both Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2000.

I've thought about dumping all the sub-folders (except maybe some library folders and the Toolbox folder) and just putting everything in 1 level.

Benefits:

1 copy of each file now (yes, I have multiple copies of the same file)

no more lost references when transferring from working on the PC or conceptual project folders to uploading data to the server.

     This should immediately fix those problems, correct?

Others???

Drawbacks:

16000+ files to page through to manually browse to a file.

Slower response when accessing these folders across the network, worse to a network on the other side of the world.

Others???

Now I know most vault systems store everything in 1 folder, so its not much different than that.

Please provide any other thoughts on this, thank you.  Tell me if I'm completely off my rocker.

--Scott