Files Greater than 2 gig

[mwhitman52]

Does anyone know of a database program without the limitation of 2 gig? Thank you

 

[tviman]

If you've got a single database with more than 2 gigs of data than you've got problems. In my 22 years of working with databases I've never had a situation where I've exceeded the 2 gig (PC) limit. I'd venture to say that you're database is either not normalized or contains historic data that should be stripped out and placed in archive data files.

One company I contracted with wanted to have their complete customer invoicing in one database so "they could look up old invoices when the need arose". I tried to talk them out of it but they insisted. Although they never reached the 2 gig limit, the file got so huge that normal searches on even the most current data took 30 to 50 seconds to complete. (Normal seek time should be less than a second.) Reindexing the file took hours instead of seconds. 6 months later they called me back to fix it - and it was simple. The "main" file contained the current fiscal year invoices. Each prior year was placed in it's own data file. Problem solved.

There's always a better way...

 

[mwhitman52]

Whoa... I manage databases with over 30 million records easily surpassing the 2 gig mark if only 100 bytes each.

 

[tviman]

Aviator -

Was'nt tossing stones - I made the assumption that you were referring to dBase style DBMS's used on PC's. I, too, have worked with and created files on mainframes and mid-ranges that far exceeded 2 gigs.

Are you wanting to migrate your files to a PC based DBMS? If so, then I don't think there is a DOS-based dBase type DBMS that breaks this limit. However, I'm pretty sure that MS Access (and other SQL-style DBMS's) don't have this size limitation.

There's always a better way...

 

[mwhitman52]

Thank you... that was what I was looking for...I will keep the records in a flat file.

 

[dbMark]

Over in the Visual FoxPro forum there was recently a spirited debate and commentary on the 2 GB size limit for tables. Even VFP, which is a powerful and excellent programming environment, does not natively handle tables any larger than that. In order to bypass that limitation it is used as the front end of SQL server or some other similar back end such as sold by Oracle, etc. At this point it seems the PC workstation-based systems are stuck here for the time being with our own "glass ceiling". Another advantage of the larger systems is better data integrity (how often is a user allowed to turn off a server without shutting down?) but the disadvantage is the added cost of servers, user licenses, equipment, etc.

See the various comments here: thread184-558851