SQL and Ms Access

[Chris Wagner]

I was in a group the other day and a comment was made that because the
increased size in their database that the users using access could not
import it into an Access file and do queries. The group says the file
is 18GB.
Myself, not have worked with Access and SQL tables (but starting to
learn), I would think that Access could link to a SQL database and once
connected those familiar with Access and creating queries could still
run their queries as if the database was an Access table. Am I
incorrect in this type of thinking?

Thanks
Chris Wagner

 

[Dirk Goldgar]

I was in a group the other day and a comment was made that because the
increased size in their database that the users using access could
not import it into an Access file and do queries. The group says the
file is 18GB.
Myself, not have worked with Access and SQL tables (but starting to
learn), I would think that Access could link to a SQL database and
once connected those familiar with Access and creating queries could
still run their queries as if the database was an Access table. Am I
incorrect in this type of thinking?

No, you are quite right. The maximum size of an Access (2000 or later)
MDB file is 2GB, but you can link to tables (in SQL Server or another
ODBC data source) that are much larger, and run queries on them just as
if they were local tables.

 

[Brendan Reynolds]

You can link to SQL Server tables from Access via ODBC, yes. Depending on
the design of the database and the application, some modification might be
required.
--
Brendan Reynolds (MVP)
http://brenreyn.blogspot.com

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[Brian]

I was in a group the other day and a comment was made that because the
increased size in their database that the users using access could not
import it into an Access file and do queries. The group says the file
is 18GB.
Myself, not have worked with Access and SQL tables (but starting to
learn), I would think that Access could link to a SQL database and once
connected those familiar with Access and creating queries could still
run their queries as if the database was an Access table. Am I
incorrect in this type of thinking?

Thanks
Chris Wagner

18Gb is too big for an Access database: 2Gb is the maximum. However, there
is no such limit in server database engines such as SQL Server and Oracle,
and you are correct in your thinking: you can indeed link Access to these
databases, whatever their size. If, as you seem to be implying, the group
in question has been merrily importing data from SQL Server into Access
instead of linking to it, then they are potty!

n.b. the free version of SQL Server (the Desktop Engine) is also limited to
2Gb.

 

[Chris Wagner]

Thank You all for your responses and I will pass the information on to the
group.

Chris Wagner