Which database handles better large tables, DBISAM or ElevateDB? Or are there no difference between the two in that respect?

Eydun


You'll need to define "better" and "larger"  before I can really try and answer the question.

My email/news client currently has c200k entries and the .blb is over 4Gb in size. That's in DBISAM and is still working well. Other apps use ElevateDB.

DBISAM is a legacy product which is still maintained but is unlikely to have much in the way of new features added. ElevateDB is the current flagship and when Tim stops playing with his new toy (EWB) gets a lot of attention.

Roy Lambert [Team Elevate]

Eydun,

<< Which database handles better large tables, DBISAM or ElevateDB? Or are
there no difference between the two in that respect? >>

If you're talking millions of rows, then you'll be better off with
ElevateDB.  DBISAM's indexes tend to slow down a bit when you start getting
up there in terms of row counts.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Both DBISAM and ElevateDb support large tables, so you can exceed 4gb per table. But ElevateDb can also store up to 2gb per blob/clob in a record. I doubt if DBISAM can store blobs/clobs that large. ElevateDb also supports Unicode data, DBISAM doesn't.

CLOB=Character Large Object like a Memo field in DBISAM.

Barry

Barry


I'll bite - what are you going to store in a 2Gb CLOB?

Roy Lambert

Roy Lambert wrote:

>>I'll bite - what are you going to store in a 2Gb CLOB?

I don't know, but I'm sure I'll need to some day.  

For CLOBS, the only thing that comes to mind is to archive text documents, books or websites (www.waybackmachine.org). This will be far more efficient than storing one page per record as we normally would.

As for 2gb blobs, storing videos would be ideal. I assume there would be some way of streaming the data to or from the blob in chunks, so the entire video would not have to be loaded into memory at one time and the stream would be sent to a streaming video player (VLC?).

Barry

Barry

>>>I'll bite - what are you going to store in a 2Gb CLOB?
>
>I don't know, but I'm sure I'll need to some day.
>
>For CLOBS, the only thing that comes to mind is to archive text documents, books or websites (www.waybackmachine.org). This will be far more efficient than storing one page per record as we normally would.
>
>As for 2gb blobs, storing videos would be ideal. I assume there would be some way of streaming the data to or from the blob in chunks, so the entire video would not have to be loaded into memory at one time and the stream would be sent to a streaming video player (VLC?).

OK, some good choices but I don't think you're assumption about being able to extract and stream the data in chunks is correct (Tim will have to answer that one).

Also (trying to twist the knife in the wound now) few of the books on my ereader run over a couple of Mb (and they're the ones with lots of pictures), a 2Gb text document must mean some sort of politician's waffle and just shouldn't be stored <vbg>.

Depending on the definition of a website then unless it has a big back end database I can't see one getting anywhere near 2Gb (excluding of course the .gov ones). Being generous you could say (for example) that the ElevateSoft website with all the forums is over 2Gb but personally I'd exclude forums.

Video, well most of the films I've seen are nearer 5 than 2 Gb, but I do like that as an idea especially if I can chop out all the anti-piracy stuff and the "this is fiction" junk and preferably the crappy menus that infest any DVDs that hold multiple episodes.

Roy Lambert

Barry,

<< As for 2gb blobs, storing videos would be ideal. I assume there would be
some way of streaming the data to or from the blob in chunks, so the entire
video would not have to be loaded into memory at one time and the stream
would be sent to a streaming video player (VLC?). >>

Just so you know - both DBISAM and EDB read the entire BLOB into memory when
it is first accessed.  This design is necessary to allow for the BLOB
compression.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Roy Lambert wrote:

>>OK, some good choices but I don't think you're assumption about being able to extract and stream the data in >>chunks is correct (Tim will have to answer that one).

Tim just did. The entire stream has to be loaded into memory. Bummer.

>>Video, well most of the films I've seen are nearer 5 than 2 Gb, but I do like that as an idea especially if I can >>chop out all the anti-piracy stuff and the "this is fiction" junk and preferably the crappy menus that infest any >>DVDs that hold multiple episodes.

I wasn't thinking of storing commercial videos. But a database would be great for archiving home videos clips so they are better organized and searchable.

Barry

Barry

>I wasn't thinking of storing commercial videos. But a database would be great for archiving home videos clips so they are better organized and searchable.

Having been subjected to some home video clips I think its better that they stay disorganised and preferably unfindable

Roy Lambert [Team Elevate]