Size of database

[ykhamitkar]

Hi there,

Size of my database was 6 MB before I uploaded data which was 24 MB excel file, after I uploaded data size of the MS Access database has gone to 88 MB,

Any thoughts

Thanks
Yogesh

[Stewart Ross]

Hi Yogesh. The increase you mention seems fairly modest to me.

I appreciate you may not want the DB to grow from its previously-small size, but Access will be creating temporary data storage behind the scenes when you import the data (through use of temporary tables, scratchpad areas and so on). Access databases do not automatically perform data recovery or garbage collection on such temporary areas. As a result, the file size of an Access database can grow quite quickly in normal use.

Overall, 88MB remains a very small DB size. If you are concerned about the increase - which again I would stress is actually quite modest - then run a compact and repair on the database to reduce its size.

-Stewart

[ykhamitkar]

Thank you so for your feedback,

There are few other excel spreadsheets I am going to upload and my concern is how much the file will grow in size, since the database is going to be uploaded on Sharepoint I am afraid it will affect the performance(spe ed) of the database

Thanks

[Stewart Ross]

Hi Yogesh. I have no experience of uploading to Sharepoint, but fundamentally I don't currently see any particular issues with the size of your DB even allowing for the kind of growth which is normal with Access. Its internal performance is not directly related to the size of the MDB file holding the Access application itself.

For applications accessed via web-based pages or similar it would be more usual to deploy a true client-server back-end database (based on SQL Server or similar) even if Access was used as the front end application. The issues you raise would not really apply in those circumstances at all.

Access applications can grow to around 4 to 5 times their 'optimal' size over time, hence the provision of the 'compact' part of the 'compact and repair' option under the Tools, Database Utilities menu in pre-2007 versions of Access. I doubt that this will of itself be much of an issue for you, though, at least not in terms of performance, but time will tell.

I would also advise, if you have not already done so, splitting the database into a front end which provides any forms, reports, queries and so on, and a back-end which just contains the tables. We have a basic article on what this entails in our Insights section under the title Front-End / Back-End (FE/BE).

-Stewart