MS Access (MDB) concurrency

Question

For a small project I need to utilize a simple database with very light requirements: few tables, no more than few thousands of records in total, 2 or 3 users. I am working

Answer 1

Access is supposed to be multi-user - I think Microsoft recommend it for up to 4 or 5 users, but in practice I'd recommend that you never use an Access database where there is more than a single user, although if you really don't have the choice it's acceptable for two or three, given certain provisos.

I've had experience of four or five systems using an Access database back-end - all acquired from other 'developers' - and in all cases I've moved them to SQL Server as the as a priority after any immediate updates and fixes required when taking the contract - generally as soon as I could talk the boss paying the bill into it. Time span for that is usually several months, so I have seen it running concurrent for a reasonable length of time under several different applications.

Actually it will generally work passably well if the system does not have a lot of concurrent inserts/update and is not heavily used. The chief practical problems in my experience are..

1. It's liable to corruption - it just does. Generally this isn't too much of a problem as opening the file and running compact and repair will sort out the issues, but a good backup regime is absolutely essential.

2. It's slow. Every time I've upgraded a system to SQL Server I've received a lot of kudos for speeding up the system from the users.

3. The database file bloats because of the way that Access marks records as updated or deleted. This further slows the system as the file has to be loaded across the network. Consequently some regime that compresses the data, usually on a daily basis, is essential.

All of the above are much less of a problem with single user systems as the underlying issues that prompt these are much less prominent.

All in all I must emphasise that I would never recommend Access for any multi-user system. However if really have too you'll probably get away with it so long as it's a lightly used application and you do institute the backup and maintenance procedures.