how many processes can be run parallel in background

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By adding a &, the command can be run in background, but how many processes can actually be run in background? i have hundreds of files to handle, want to minimized the time by separating and running them in background

i wonder if i have to check how many threads i have, however i am confused about the concept of threads..

when i cat /proc/cpuinfo:

cpu cores   : 8
siblings    : 16

does it means that i have 8 cores and 16 threads, but what does it means with

cat /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max 2063255

What are the threads here mean? and what about the answer here using top ?

i am so confused.. please help

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