[Zope] ZEO with Multiple Storages

[Brian Brinegar]

We currently have a ZEO environment with FileStorage (data.fs) over 100 
gigs, which continues to grow. Currently we are approaching a major 
hardware and software upgrade. All new hardware and moving from Zope 2.6 
to Zope 2.9.

Our server hosts sites for several different schools and departments 
within our college, what I have considered doing is trying to split up 
the data.fs into multiple smaller storages, possibly one per school. I 
suspect if this is possible it could potentially have several benefits. 
The first being that we would not have to deal with 100 gig files which 
are very difficult to move around backup/restore, etc. Secondly, we 
often have a very large number of users updating content at a given time 
and will run into slowdowns where a transaction is blocked while another 
commits. I hope that multiple storages could allow for a transaction to 
commit to one storage at the same time as another, though I am not sure. 
Along this line can a single transaction commit to multiple storages?

First off, does this make any sense? Is it worth pursuing? Secondly, I 
assume that where an object is stored does not limit what other objects 
it can access in a transaction (e.g. object A could add a property to 
object B if they were in different storages) because all changes would 
occur in a client. (this ties into the single transaction committing to 
multiple storages)

If this does makes sense is there any documentation, recommendations, 
best practices for how to set something like this up?

Lastly, any thoughts on how we could split up our existing data.fs file? 
One thought I had was to attempt to import/export data.

Thank you,

Brian Brinegar
Web Systems Developer
Engineering Computer Network
Purdue University