Recommended Site Collection Size and Recycle Bin Setting

Question

I'm working in the SharePoint Online - Dedicated environment.

Based on some documentation that I have read concerning limitations of Web Applications, Content Database sizes I've gathered the following info:

• 300 Content DB per Web App
• Content DB are 200GB (recommended)
• Site Collections by default are 100GB
• Recycle bin percentage is by default 50%

With these settings, I don't see how we are maximizing the storage capacity of the Content DB. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does the Recycle Bin not add to the Site collection size? For example, the Site Collection is set to 100GB, the Recycle bin is 50%. This increases the actually allocation of the Site Collection on the Contend DB to 150GB, therefore wasting 50GB?

We are currently limited by the amount of Web Applications that we can have, so we cannot just spin up more of them. Would it not be better to use the following settings:

• Site Collection size 80GB
• Recycle bin percentage 25%

Thoughts?

Answer 1

The recycle bin storage counts against the storage space quota. So if you have a site collection with a 100GB quota, it will occupy 50 GB when full and cut your available space allocation to 50 GB. It isn't on top of, but inclusive.

From storman.aspx "Items in the recycle bin count against the storage quota."

Answer 2

If you are talking about the second-stage (site collection) recycle bin, then the recycle bin storage does not count against the site quota, but the size specified for this recycle bin increases the total size of the site and its content DB.

To answer your question, it depends on your business SLA. Depending on your business needs, you can adjust this setting to your liking. The default value for this recycle bin is set to 50% of the Web application quota.

Recycle bin percentage 25%

This is 25% of the Web application quota, not necessary of a site collection. If your Web application has a single site collection, then in that case the recycle bin is 25% of that Web application or the SC quota. But, if you Web application has multiple SCs then it is 25% of all SCs quotas combined.

ref: Plan to protect content by using recycle bins and versioning (technet)