The NSS Name Cache is responsible for caching the Name Tree information. This is the information that is read when you perform any kind of search by file or directory name. The Name Cache maps a name to a ZID (a unique file object ID). Directory listings do not do this as much as normal file opens that must resolve each name in the file path.
Use the NameCacheSize parameter to specify the amount of recently used Name Tree entries for files and directories that NSS caches. Each entry uses about 150 bytes of memory.
Increasing the maximum number of entries Name Cache entries does not necessarily improve the performance for getting directory listing information if NSS also needs to look up information about the file from a tree or structure outside of the name tree.
If you want to see how your name cache is performing, use the nss /NameCacheStats command.
Specify the maximum number of recently used Name Tree entries for files and directories to cache. Name cache grows up to the specified limit. Unlike the file system cache, it does not take the maximum amount of memory allocated from the start.
Default: 100000
Range: 17 to 1000000