Column limits for SP Software boundaries explained

Question

In page https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262787.aspx#Column , I cannot understand the rows description, particular Maximum value, Limit type and Size per column.

If possible I would like an example for Multiple Lines of Text.

Answer 1

• "Maximum value - 192" means that you can have 192 multiple lines of text columns in one list.
• "Limit type - Threshold" means that the limit is controlled with a threshold that can be overridden (soft limit).
• "Size per column - 28 bytes" means that the column uses 28 bytes of space in the database (not to be confused with the content itself).

The whole thing is called row wrapping limitation. Keep in mind that there is another limit - the sum of all columns in a SharePoint list cannot exceed 8,000 bytes.

The Note column character length doesn't affect you in any way. The column will still be 28 bytes. You are confusing definition with content. If, for example, you set "Allow unlimited length in document libraries", your column will still use 28 bytes out of 8,000 row bytes and the contents of it can be up to 2GB (Multiple Lines of Text field is defined in SharePoint as a 'Note' type, this is stored in the DB as a ntext SQL type. It can store up to 2GB of char data, that's 1,073,741,823 characters.)

You can find out if the row wrapping is needed by subtracting the column sizes that you use in a list from 8,000 (minus 256 bytes for ootb columns). E.g. you have a custom SharePoint list with 5 custom columns (3 Single Line of Text, 1 Multiple Lines of Text and a Number). You would then take 8,000 (maximum number of bytes for one row), subtract 256 bytes reserved for built-in SharePoint columns and then subtract your custom column sizes. So the final calculation would look like this: 8,000 – 256 – 3*28 – 28 – 12 = 7620. If the number is higher than 0, that means 1 list item is using one row in the database.

On the other hand, keep an eye on the number after how many columns row wrapping occurs. For example, if you have more than 32 Multiple Lines of Text columns in your list, row wrapping will occur even if you don’t hit the 8,000 limit.

I would suggest you read the MSDN article again. It will be pretty much straight forward once you understand it.

Hope this helps.