Access should actually be able to handle that - reasonably.
Would I recommend that you do so though?
Not particularly :-)
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What's considered too big for access tables?
Hey experts,
Not a problem question, just an information question.
What would be considered too large for an access table?
We've been tracking data daily for certain categories that add up to about 62 records a day, comes out to just over 16k records a year. Now the higher ups want to break that down into subcategories, which would result in 2480 records added a day, or roughly 645,000 for the year. Another table comes out to about 290,000 records per year. This data is used to compare current sales trends with past performances. I know access isn't the most robust database out there, so I wanted to double check before I go ahead with the changes or try to either talk them out of the extra breakdown or give them the cost of MS SQL, or something better able to handle that many records. Thanks in advance for any advice.
Bryan
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Answers
The data in the tables is used to create pivot charts to look for patterns showing up so we can alter our actions accordingly. It's really only used to dump data into and view the charts. We have a few reports that run from the data.
As I'm still teaching myself all the in's and out's of Access and database design in general, what exactly do you mean by linking? Right now, I have the database split between front and back end, with the actual table data in the back end, linked front end for multiple users. Would it just be splitting the backend into multiple databases and linking the front end to each one?
Ok, one more question then. How long would it take for a table with 650k records a year to reach 2gb's? Guestimates are fine, as I haven't really worked with anything over 15k records. Would it be an accurate guess to say import about 10k records and multiple up from there? And what would be the option when it reaches the limit? just a new database and when creating the pivot charts query from both tables? The table format would be something like this
OID - Autonumber PK
ZipCode - Number
Category - String
Value - String
Status - String
Total - Integer
RecordDay - Date
The above format would give me about 1.3mil records a year as it doubles my categories. Though I think that is the more correct way of designing the table, the second option would keep it at 650k and I would just change 2 fields, status would turn into ListingTotal, and Total would turn into PendingTotal, both integers.
If a record is 500 bytes in length, then 1.3 Million records would come to 650 Million bytes, or, at that rate, about 3 years.
The size of one record, for your table, depends on how long the string fields are, as the other fields add up to about 16 bytes, max.
By the way, ZipCode is NOT a number (or should not be), ZipCodes should be stored as a 5 (or 10, if ZIP + 4 with the -) character field (in order to preserve any leading 0s). You would NEVER consider doing arithmetic on a ZipCode field - or would you...LOL!!
AW
Outside the 2GB limit for an mdb file, there is no substitute for a well designed database schema.
Provided you don't have too many concurrent users, Microsoft Access should be able to handle pretty large tables comfortably.
Normalizing your database model is the key to a successful database, without requiring major changes to your schema in order to extend it's functionality.
I have a system that is totally using Access. I've broken my tables down so that each table resides in its own MDB. (1 TABLE = 1 MDB). Each table can be 2 gig in size (yes... I'm linking to tables in 12 different mdbs).
These are medium size table structures - no more than 50 fields in the larger tables - many of the fields are TEXT fields (take up more space than numeric fields). I bench marked the system and noted that in a 1 gig table - I can have 5 million records. Therefore, I can assume about 10 million records in 2 gig. 12 mdb (tables) * 10 million records is a lot of data.
I've also thoroughly tested the system with 5 million 'loaded' records. There was no diminished performance. Actually, it performed better than I expected. I saw no difference in speed returning a single record between 200,000 records and 5 million records.
This particular system has been running 'live' since September of last year. It's a 12 hour a day - 7 day a week process. It only has 3 concurrent users. One of the PCs is the designated 'file server' - which also is a workstation (not typically recommeded) - the other 2 PCs use the first PCs file folder as network shared.
I have had no trouble calls to date.
Scott C.
>>"But wouldn't integer allow for an easier query where multiple sequential zip codes are included in the search criteria?"
no, because you will want to search for 01278, not 1278
Select * from MyTable where ZipCode in ('01234','09872','12345','
similarly, if you want to seach a range of ZipCodes:
Select * from MyTable where ZipCode between '01234' and '01456'
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by: mgrattanPosted on 2006-03-07 at 16:06:39ID: 16129105
For that many records, I'd defintely recommend SQL Server; or, you could go with the free desktop version MSDE if you don't need to run it on a server. Techincally speaking, however, Access is limited not by the number of records but by the size of the database. I believe 2gb is the current size limitation.