Hi everyone,
We are choosing between SQL Express and SQL Server. We'd like to go with SQL Express but the database size is limited to 4 Gb. We'll take 3 lanes and back office, about 500 items, 5 suppliers and 150 transactions per day. We'd like to store receipts in database too. I'll appreciate if someone could help us to understand if 4 Gb is enough for a store like us and what will be the difference in database size with storing our receipts and without it.
M,
I am not sure if there is a definitive answer to this but i will give you an example of one of my three lane sites.
3 Lanes, 12,000 product lines, 100 suppliers and at lease 500 transactions per day.This site is using MSDE which only has 2 gig limit. This limit was hit within 18 months so i would imagine you would get at least double this amount of time using SQ express.
A lot of this space is taken up by the journal images so if your not using them they can be turned off
There is then the option of purchasing something like Retail Realms archiving software
H> Hi everyone,
Read my recent posts on reaching the 2GB MSDE limit. I had to upgrade to SQL Express in emergency fashion. It was not a fun experience.
I would go full SQL if you can afford it. The upgrade process is not exactly seamless. I was not happy with the unforseen expense that will inevitably hit me. You should plan for it either way...
Of course, I am in a 3 store environment with HQ, 4500 items, 70 suppliers, and 150 transactions/day, so maybe mine is not a great example. I reached
2GB after about one year.The store receipts being journalled is a big contributor I understand (and I need them). Maybe someone out there can help us with the procedure to calculate how much of the database is being taken up by journal images... I'd be happy to report back my findings.
Speaking of that, I have two receipt printers set up with printing done to one narrow format printer for each transaction. I journal the narrow and 80 column receipts so I can reprint a receipt or give the customer a large format receipt if they require on a back office printer. I wonder if there is a way to delete one type of journal receipts... This would cut my database usage in half for journals. I would like to do this at the store level, but especially at HQ.
It 100% depends on the Journal receipts.
Our store does about 500 transactions per day.
Initially we just kept all journal receipts and at the start of the year were approaching 3GB. I investigated and couldn't believe how much space the journal was taking up.
I didn't want turn off the journal as it can be handy, but we'd never looked at a receipt older than than say a few days.
We removed all receipts older than 60 days and this took the database from
3GB to 600MB.What I do now is have this script run automatically every night, so I never have to worry about it
DELETE StoreOps.dbo.Journal where time < getdate()-60
(60 is the number of days to keep receipts)
Works well for us.
I'd only go full SQL if you were a huge store or had some reason for keeping receipts from years ago, otherwise a waste of money IMHO
Cheers
What about "copying" the journals to another database somehow. How can the journals be viewed? Is this exclusively an RMS ability?
What about "copying" the journals to another database somehow. How can the journals be viewed? Is this exclusively an RMS ability?
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