DB size decreases when imported in blanc DB

[Avlan]

Just checking:

I've stripped an Access97-DB clean from security and import the lot
into a blanc DB so I'm the owner. When I do this, the size decreases
from 10MB to 3MB (roughly)! It looks as if he imports everything nicely
and that all is working (although I'm not sure, it's not my own so
can't test it thoroughly) but it worries me a bit that 7MB of data is
lost...

Is it just that Access stores all kinds of undo-data or other stuff? Of
course it's not untypical of Microsoft products to get bigger and
bigger when you use it more and more, but still... ;-)

Anyone know of this?

 

[Guest]

Anyone know of this?

Yes. Sounds like normal behavior. Did you compact the source database first?

Check out an article written by Cary Prague a number of years ago. It is now
available on the "Wayback Machine":

http://web.archive.org/web/20030204023622/http://www.databasecreations.com/largedb.htm


Tom
________________________________________

:

Just checking:

I've stripped an Access97-DB clean from security and import the lot
into a blanc DB so I'm the owner. When I do this, the size decreases
from 10MB to 3MB (roughly)! It looks as if he imports everything nicely
and that all is working (although I'm not sure, it's not my own so
can't test it thoroughly) but it worries me a bit that 7MB of data is
lost...

Is it just that Access stores all kinds of undo-data or other stuff? Of
course it's not untypical of Microsoft products to get bigger and
bigger when you use it more and more, but still... ;-)

Anyone know of this?

 

[Joseph Meehan]

Just checking:

I've stripped an Access97-DB clean from security and import the lot
into a blanc DB so I'm the owner. When I do this, the size decreases
from 10MB to 3MB (roughly)! It looks as if he imports everything
nicely and that all is working (although I'm not sure, it's not my
own so can't test it thoroughly) but it worries me a bit that 7MB of
data is lost...

Is it just that Access stores all kinds of undo-data or other stuff?
Of course it's not untypical of Microsoft products to get bigger and
bigger when you use it more and more, but still... ;-)

Anyone know of this?

Most likely you have not compacted your database before. When you
delete a file and many other things in Access they are not really deleted,
but only marked as deleted. When you compact or copy as you did, these
previously deleted items are really deleted.

 

[Avlan]

Thanks, got a little more peace of mind now ;-D
Nice article btw

 

[Avlan]

Idd, when I compiled & compacted the original, it already went from 10+
MB to 6,5 MB...
However, that means it still a reduction of 50% when imported into a
new database... Still looks like a lot to me ;P But it seems to work
fine