What is a large access database?

[purchaandr]

Hey there everyone,

This is just for curiosities sake, what would define a large access database (how many records, tables etc)?

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[HiTechCoach]

Overall a single database file cane be:

2 gigabytes minus the space needed for system objects (system object: Database objects that are defined by the system, such as the table MSysIndexes, or by the user.

See:
Access specifications

The 2 gig limit is on a single database file. You could have multiple database files used as a single application. The 2 gig limit limit is a sum of all the objects. For example: the number of records in a table is only limited by how may will fit within the max file size, not the number of rows.

Large as compared to what?

You question is so vague and so general that to give you a complete answer would take a while to cover everything that your question could possible cover.

What are you really wanting to know? Please be specific.

 

[Simon_MT]

You have to be in the league of hundreds of thousands of records in a table.

Simon

 

[namliam]

I once had to make a system (back in 97 days) that had 15 backend databases located over the network all integrated into one front end.

All these backend databases > 100 megs, it wasnt the fasted thing... but it worked.

Large is hard to measure.... as a size... I work with Oracle databases too, where billions of records is no exception. Something you wouldnt even concieve of in Access.

 

[daviedaft]

IMO a large database isn't defined by its records or tables, it's defined by the number of concurrent users.

With efficiently written, parameterised queries and elegant code you can quite easily manage a "large" database for a small number of users. I've developed (well, enhanced, or tried to enhance!) databases well over 1GB that have worked relatively well.

But an incorrectly designed (or even a well-designed!) database can soon become unmanageable with more than a handful of concurrent users, even if the database is "small".

As a general rule I'd say anything over 100MB is getting "large", but as people said that all depends whether you're using a frontend/backend, LAN setup etc etc, there is no fixed rule.

 

[namliam]

I have one customer where the network is so good, any access database over 20 megs takes their surpluss in Megs measured in Minutes to open

 

[Len Boorman]

Large ?.

I have had 5.25 Million records in a single table. Very few tables

I have had a database with 66 tables but only 00's of records per table generally.

Large ?

L

 

[purchaandr]

Hey guys,

Great to hear what you think! I'm currently studying and I usually work with SQL Server and C# programming. I have however been asked to make a database for someone just as a project and they do want it in access. It has about 9 tables and some of the tables will potentially have up to 6 or 7 thousand records in them. I have been a little bit "creative" in the way that I have made my database So was just wondering If I was going to be suffering any major performance issues. Being relatively new on the scene of databases compared to other veterans on here, I had no idea that some tables in databases could contain so many records!

Thanks for all your insights, I think i will be relatively OK due to what all of you have said so far but I do now understand that there is a lot of things to take into consideration when constructing a DB.
DavieDaft, that is a pretty good way of looking at things I think I shall be keeping that in mind from this day onwards.

Thanks alot guys, there is definitely a wealth of knowledge within this forum.

 

[namliam]

a couple of tables with a few 10.000+ records in them... should not be a problem at all...

 

[stopher]

Great to hear what you think! I'm currently studying and I usually work with SQL Server and C# programming. I have however been asked to make a database for someone just as a project and they do want it in access. It has about 9 tables and some of the tables will potentially have up to 6 or 7 thousand records in them.

Are you planning to run over a network? As namliam has already eluded, that could be a big consideration as Access runs the queries locally and therefore drags all the data needed for the query across the network (unlike say SQL Server). Having said that I run plenty of small/medium size Access databases on a LAN with no real problems. Remote usage (via internet/VPN) is pretty painful though in my (limited) experience.

Chris