Growth Model for Site Collections and Content Databases

When to Create a New Site Collection

A site collection is a group of sites built on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services that all exist under a top-level site. To make managing the sites and their content more convenient, you can assign users to be site collection administrators or site collection owners. These are permission levels to give to users who you want to have full administrative rights to all sites and content within a site collection.

Site Collections should be created for;
New Top Level Sites
New Groups
New Divisions
Any new or non existing major heading or internal site

Examples
IT
Finance
HR
Sales
Marketing

Site Collections should NOT be created for;
Personal Sites
Project Sites
Any minor heading or internal site that should fall under one of the larger more generic, “encompassing” Site Collections

To create Site Collections, Administrators can use;
Central Administration GUI
Application Management
Create Site Collection
STSADM
stsadm.exe -o createsite -url http://myserver/sites/site1 -ownerlogin -owneremail someone@example.com -ownername

When to create a New DB

By default Site Collection are created in the same or last created Content Database unless specified other wise. Content Databases are the warehouses for a Site Collection’s Files, Documents, List Items, Subsites, and overall general data contained within the Site Collection.

New Content Databases should be created for/when;
A Site Collection contains/will contain highly sensitive information that if lost must be backed up as quickly as possible
A current Site Collection is approaching the 100 GB limit (or the pre-determined limit)
A Database is approaching or has hit its maximum number of sites allowed

Limit content database size to enhance manageability
Plan for database sizing that will allow for manageability and performance of your environment.

In most circumstances, to enhance the performance of SharePoint, the use of content databases larger than 100 GB is not suggested. If your design requires a database larger than 100 GB, follow the guidance below. (100 GB is a suggestion only from a SQL Manageability and Usability standpoint. SQL 2005 is “capable” of handling Terabytes of data, however managing a database that large is not feasible. To determine the actual limit or cut off points for your SQL environment speak with the DBA’s and see what they are comfortable with managing and how the current backup model is setup.)

Use a single site collection for the data.
Use a differential backup solution, such as SQL Server or Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager, rather than the built-in backup and recovery tools.
Test the server running SQL Server and the I/O subsystem before moving to a solution that depends on a 100 GB content database.
Split content from a site collection that is approaching 100 GB into a new site collection in a separate content database to avoid performance or manageability issues.
Limit content databases that contain multiple site collections to approximately 100 GB.

STSADM Command Quick Tip:
To create a new Site Collection in a new Content Database use the following command with the appropriate parameters;
stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb

-Brian Grabowski