How to estimate database size over time

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Corey - 30 Sep 2004 02:59 GMT

How can I reasonably estimate the size my access db will grow to be. If the
number of tables is fixed at 10 or less with each table containing 50 to 100
fields.
Each row in a table contains a unique set of data identified by a case
number. The number of cases per month would be about 70 to 100.
The data in all of the fields is a half and half mix of single digit
numbers, to short sentences of text.

Any help appreciated or even just point me in a direction.
Is access even the right database to be using when worried about long term
space issues?

Thanks

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Duane Hookom - 30 Sep 2004 04:14 GMT

50-100 fields in each table sounds a bit un-normalized but that's a
different issue. I would suggest creating the tables and check the size
following compaction. Then use some code to add a few thousand garbage
records and compact and check the size again. Add a few thousand more and
repeat. This should give you a clear idea of how much the file will grow
based on the number of records.

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Duane Hookom
MS Access MVP

> How can I reasonably estimate the size my access db will grow to be. If the
> number of tables is fixed at 10 or less with each table containing 50 to 100
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Thanks

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John Vinson - 30 Sep 2004 07:31 GMT

>Is access even the right database to be using when worried about long term
>space issues?

If the space will exceed 2 billion bytes anytime soon, then Access may
not be the best choice (though I know of at least one Access
application managing over 10 gigabytes, spread over multiple
databases).

However, 2 gig is a LOT of data. How many rows do you expect to add
per year? If the answer is "a million or so" - worry. If the answer is
"a couple of thousand" - compact regularly and cool it.

The concern expressed elsethread about "a hundred fields" is very well
taken. I've needed as many as 60 fields in a table, once or twice. 100
fields is almost certainly concealing an embedded one-to-many
relationship.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Join the online Access Chats
Tuesday 11am EDT - Thursday 3:30pm EDT
http://community.compuserve.com/msdevapps

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