Access performence

Access is not a good web database. Supposedly it will allow 50-250 concurrent connections but experience indicates that it is more like 20-40.

Either use SQL server or MySQL.

Yep know that part (a site would have to be sooo popular for that to have an effect), but how much data can it have in it before it becomes unstable?

who knows, nobody uses Access. Even if concurrent connections isn't an issue it's slow as molasses.

Use mysql or postgresql. theyre free and lightweight. If you're set on a MS db for some reason use FoxPro.

From what I understand Access is foxpro.

Anyone have any hard facts on why access would be a bad choice? Concurrent connections would only be an issue if the site is getting 1000 hits an hour. The site I am talking about would be lucky to get 100 hits an hour. I have used access for several low traffic sites and their response is as fast as any site on the same server.

Visit this link: http://nasanu.org/6.asp

Is it slow? No. Does it use access? Yes.

I am looking for some facts, not personal bias.

heh.. Well how many queries are you running on that one page?

You can hardly compare that 3 query Access page to a 30 query mySQL page.

If you care to see where/how MS Access fails to measure up, do some research and compare stats. Probably the most noticable is the size limitations...
MS Access database size limit: 1GB
mySQL table size limit: 4GB (8GB with MyISAM tables)

It's also worth mentioning that Access comes with MS Office. It is not a true database server. IMO, it's a play thing, and only good for personal home use.

from googling around:
http://p2p.wrox.com/archive/access/2002-09/39.asp
http://www.georgehernandez.com/xDatabases/MSAccess/Index.htm
http://www.cicorp.com/help/access.asp

mySQL Docs:
1.2.4 How Big Can MySQL Tables Be?
[url="5.4.4 Column Indexes"]http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Indexes.html[/url]
5.4.5 Multiple-Column Indexes

Well your links really confirm that Access is a fine choice for small low traffic volume websites. I can't see why any site short of an ebay or yahoo would need a database of more than 50MB or so. Who would spend that much time downloading the site?

As I said the database is for a car dealership and there would only be one or two select statments running on each page and thats about it. The site needs no security and the chance of 10-20 users hitting the page at once is quite low. So tell me again why access is a bad choice for websites?

BTW a 30 query mySQL page? Honestly why would you ever need that?

Quote: Originally posted by nasanu
So tell me again why access is a bad choice for websites?

It sounds like your mind is already made up.

This page probably has about 20 queries running it.

Does it mean anything to you that:
"The client though does not think access could handle the amount of content the site will have."

I have built a forum just like this using only 2-3 select statments. More than that for a forum like this is just sloppy and I can't see how you'd use 20.

And no it does not mean anything to me that the client thinks that. The client also does not know how to type or import data into access for easy transfer to another database. They are instead paying quite a bit extra to have me pull the content for a HTML page. They don't even know how to use access in the most basic way yet they are telling me exactly what it can handle and you expect me to listen?...

I apologise for starting an argument when your jus trying to help me. It just annoys me to hear such arguments with nothing to back them up.

Let me ask you this. What would it take to convince you that Access is a bad choice?

As Mark Irving pointed out, it sounds like you already have your mind made up.

BTW, what makes this page so heavy on the queries is the fact that there is no hard coded HTML. All HTML is stored in template form in the DB and queried one template at a time. In spite of that, this page can still be built in under 0.05 seconds.

MySQL/Other Db's benchamrk comparisons:
http://www.mysql.com/information/benchmarks.html
Access/MySQL benchmark comparison:
http://www.mysql.com/information/benchmark-results/result-access,mysql.html

"Let me ask you this. What would it take to convince you that Access is a bad choice?"

Show me the sites I have made with Access falling over or responding slow. Only that would convince me that Access is a big nasty.

Hell you should see this page: http://www.nasanu.org/wcdr/
It was a little bit of fun for me when I was learning asp. Its backed by access and does about 3 calls to Access for each driver in the database. Currently I think there is nearly 200. So that's about 600 calls to Access in the one page. The page does take a few seconds to load because of this but listening to you guys you'd expect the page to not load at all.

I know Access is slow and not nearly as good as SQL Server or mySQL. However I think that for small sites you can't tell the difference between an Access or SQL Server backend in either speed or stability.

well, go use access then.