[AccessD] SQL Server advice

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Mon Sep 5 15:30:58 CDT 2011


Stephen,

 > I have a fully licensed 2000 Standard edition (acquired with an Action Pack in the days when MS 
New Zealand charged a one-time fee for Action Packs) on a 10-year-old WinXP box (¾GB)

Way under powered.  It will run (barely) but you won't be happy.

SQL Server of any kind is a somewhat major learning curve.  You can just set up and go but then...

The express version is quite powerful for what it is but it has major limitations such as a single 
core and a gig of ram.  I have discovered that if you are hitting the limits of Access then you may 
already be at the limits of express.  It will be fine for getting in the water so to speak but it is 
missing stuff.

I thought I was going to use it for a client of mine but when I looked closely it just wasn't 
powerful enough.  OTOH my client has nursed his access system way beyond reason and now has 25 users 
and around 4-5 gigs of data.  We are now looking at a pretty expensive upgrade to full on SQL 
Server.  Once you do a new server (hardware) with 25 seats on the OS and 25 seats on SQL Server you 
are looking at > $10K, and probably closer to $15K.  That said, you then have power to take you 
through the next 5-10 years.

 > PS - I'm a bit like Arthur (same age and increasingly pursuing other interests), so we're not 
talking long-term large commitments here (financial or long learning curve).

Uhh... this just means that you only have 20 years of work life left right?  ;)

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

On 9/5/2011 3:54 PM, Stephen Bond wrote:
> After mucking around on the fringes for too long I am ready to make a more committed leap into SQL Server.  I can foresee a customer  needing to upgrade their Access back end within the next six months to a year and want to get 'expertly' ahead<vbg>.
> I have a fully licenced 2000 Standard edition (acquired with an Action Pack in the days when MS New Zealand charged a one-time fee for Action Packs) on a 10-year-old WinXP box (¾GB) and I am comfortable with this at the 'play' level.
>
> On a year-old Windows 7 box with 4GB, my question concerns which tool to use, the above ... or SQL Server 2008 R2 Express?  The downsides that I can see of Express 2008 would be (a) another learning curve (b) the nagging feeling that I remember something about these less-than-complete SQL Server implementations that is not good - like inability to do important development stuff that is available in the full-blown models.  This, iirc, was true for one of MS's implementations, long ago.  The upside is that I make the enormous leap into another century.  But wait, there's got to be more (to both -ve and +ve).
>
> Any feedback gratefully received.
>
> Stephen Bond
>
> PS - I'm a bit like Arthur (same age and increasingly pursuing other interests), so we're not talking long-term large commitments here (financial or long learning curve).
>



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