SQL or Access

[JohnWise]

A total newbie here. What is difference? I know that I am going to have to use a database. The plan I am looking at is 30 dollars more for SQL.
Thanks.

[korkus2000]

Depends on what you are doing. What do you need the database for?

SQL is a big industral sized database that can handle anything you need.

Access is small database that has a lot of limitations, but can be a quick easy route for some sites.

[jatar_k]

For one fellow I work for I use flat(text) files for everything so that he doesn't have to pay the extra 30/mth.

[bateman_ap]

I started my site in Access. Was the cheaper option while I learned about databases etc.

As my traffic got higher my site started falling over, had to migrate to sql. Quite a easy transfer, just a couple of bits of code needed to be rewritten.

Quick tip, if you go the access route write all our connection strings as include files, that makes it relly easy to go over to sql, you pretty much change the include file and test the site.

BTW I had to change over at about 300,000 page views a month, god knows how it would cope now with 3 million!

[tomasz]

try ehostingbiz.com you can get 300m space + 300m database for only $20/month + ASP, ASP.NET

[jimbeetle]

About a year and a half ago I spent a lot of time crammed into 3 months trying to learn the ins and outs of Access 2000 to convert a large site to db driven.

Ran into a lot of known bugs with no M$ fixes except for shoddy work-arounds. By the time I was confident to go ahead with the project two out of three of our hosts were actively discouraging use of Access because of resource use.

So two 1,000+ page books are sitting on the shelf above me waiting for their mySQL companions. Discouraged, the project is also shelved for now.

There are many plans that throw in mySQL as a freebie or close to it. From what I understand it's not a bad choice for small- to mid-sized DBs. I'm sure one of the DB gurus can go more into depth on this.

Jim

[JohnWise]

Thanks to all for the responses. The site I am planning will take data(that changes daily) and make it available for users to make selections from. I will keep a weekly, monthly, etc. record of those selections. So I will have to be doing basic mathematical manipulations with the selections. I do however want to be able to display these selections(for all to see) at a later time of the day then when they were submitted.
Could Access handle say 10,000 pageviews daily in this fashion?
Thanks very much. I have never worked with databases and feel a little embarrassed asking some of this. I am sure it is elementary for so many of you.

[korkus2000]

Access could, but what you are talking about sounds more like SQL.

[mole]

I would say that if you're contemplating 10,000 pages per day, don't bother with Access.

Unfortunately (I speak from experience) if you ramp up the load on Access it will, sooner or later, fall over.

Then you've got to (a) sort out the mess and (b) migrate to another database.

MS SQL server is offered by many hosts, but have a look round for hosts running MySQL - that does the job pretty well too, and MySQL-Max is even better.

My personal view is that I wouldn't use MS SQL server either - if the job's big enough for a real database, then go straight to Oracle.

[Mardi_Gras]

There is another very recent thread around here somewhere (I can't find it) comparing Access and SQL. The general agreement among those posting was that Access starts to fall down with just a literal handful of simultaneous connections. You may want to try to find that thread - or wait for some more advice - before moving forward with Access for that number of daily connections.

[JohnWise]

This particular host offers SQL 2000.

[nipear]

Right now I have 1 Access driven information site that gets around 25,000 page views a day. As of this minute there are 167 active sessions. It works great and is fast.

I also have several Access driven ecommerce sites that get anywhere from 4,000 to 25,000 page views a day.

These sites are all on the same server, and this server should spit out well over 1 million page views this month mostly from Access generated pages.

At first I was very weary of Access, but I've honestly had no problem with it.

But then again I'm not having pages write to the database, just retrieving records...

[mole]

> I'm not having pages write to the database, just retrieving records...

nipear - I agree - if you're only reading from it, Access is fine.

It's when you start doing concurrent updates that the trouble begins.