how big is too big??

[emcf]

...morning all,

at what size does a database become too large? I've noticed that my one is now 18.5 MB and it is becoming quite slow (worringly i've only got about 200 records in it...eventually there will be three or four times that amount - i'll make an .mde out of it once i've stopped tinkering with the design)....i've used the access performance analyser and implemented the recommendations but the dbase is still v.slow at times.
i've also put some .bmp as backgrounds to my forms...when I did this the size of the database grew substantially...does anyone else use .bmp files or do you use the basic pallette colours for backgrounds?

 

[Mile-O]

I think 1Gb is the maximum size of an Access database - I'm probably wrong though.

Embedded bitmaps will increase the size dramatically.

You can compact your database to reduce its size and should do this regularly.

 

[emcf]

cheers mile,

i compacted it and reduced the size from 18.5MB down to 9.4MB! by turning it to an .mde it should come down further even if i leave my groovy bitmaps in!

 

[Rich]

Changing it to an MDE will make no or very little difference to your file size, removing your bitmaps will have the largest gain in file size reduction

 

[emcf]

thanks rich,
fair enough....i was under the impression that making an .mde did reduce the size - it is back to a decent size now after being compacted so reducing it further isn't that important. I'll be keeping the bitmaps in as I spent a couple of hours yesterday making them on photoshop and i leike them!

 

[Len Boorman]

Errrrr

The one I am currently working on is at 65Mb compacted with very few records.

Lots of VBA to control responses to questions. If slow at 10Mb and you are running over a network maybe the network needs looking at.

Len

 

[emcf]

....how good our network is I do not know......my PC probably has something to do with the slowness...a pentium 2 with about 128k ram. it struggles with things like word and excel so a reasonably hefty database must be causing it problems.

 

[KevinM]

......with about 128k ram....

I'm surprised you can even start Windows with that!

Sure it's not a Commodore 128k you are using

 

[emcf]

...thankfully not....more like an amstrad 464!
hopefully my IT dept will give me one of the natty new machines that they are doling out.

 

[adz2013]

I currently have databases with 100,000 records and are 200 mb. So your 20 mb database is not anywhere near being to big. I have the users compact the database on a daily basis to keep the size down. You should compact it as much as possible and your network connection will make a difference.

 

[emcf]

100K of records?!? good grief...that must be nearing the limits of access is it? i think i remember someone telling me that once you get to that amount of records access starts to have problems?

 

[Rich]

AlthoughI only use it for testing and it's not on a network I have one with 1.5million records, there are other users posting here with more

 

[adz2013]

I have yet to see Access crash because of the number of records. I have some databses that are not being used anymore that had 1 million rows. Yes there are some performance issues but that is it. Don't listen to anything Microsoft tells you about size or users. I have called them to ask questions and they told be that I could only have 1GB size database and then it would not work, but I have had that size with no problems. Also they told be that 15 users would be the max that could use a database at one time and I have 100 users on a database at the same time. So don't belive everything you hear about access.