Hi,

I am building a website which could potentially contain millions of
images. For each page on my website it will list the product and
provide a photo.

My question is I want to know if there is any performance issues with
storing all the image files in one folder instead of splitting them
into subfolders. I know on a desktop machine that storing millions of
files in one folder does take longer to access but would like to know
if a server will run slower trying to access an image from a large
folder or if the slowdown on the desktop machine is the result of
computer trying to display all the file names.

Basicly, Does it take a Unix web server noticably longer to access an
image from a million-file folder than it does for a folder with 10
images?

Please provide a link to at least one reliable source of information.

Thank You.