As catalogs increase in size, so do the requirements they place on computer hardware. It takes more processing power to work with 200,000 records than it does with 200. It also takes more RAM to hold the larger catalog in memory.
NOTE: The unique way Cumulus searches for records prevents large catalogs from slowing down the search speed.
There is virtually no limit to the size of a catalog file (up to 1 TB). Most users will find it best to split catalogs for organizational and performance reasons. The actual number of records that can be stored in a catalog and the catalog’s actual file size is determined by the size of each record. (See “Record Size”.)