September 21, 2010 at 9:50 am
I have flat files databases from over 360, 000 servers that need to be converted to SQL Server databases. I need to estimate the size of the flat files so i know how much space i need for my new SQL Server databases. The new databases will reside in a shared environment and space is limited.
My question is, is there a way i can estimate the size of a flat file database?. Thanks for your responce
September 21, 2010 at 10:30 am
I would recommend converting a sampling of them and then using that to estimate average DB size and extrapolate from there.
What exactly is a 'flat file database'?
September 21, 2010 at 12:08 pm
John -
A flat file database is nothing more than a plain-text file that contains one record per line, extremely similar to a comma delimited file.
Chris Powell
George: You're kidding.
Elroy: Nope.
George: Then lie to me and say you're kidding.
September 21, 2010 at 12:47 pm
That's what I figured, but I was hoping to verify this from the OP.
There are several factors that will go into how much space will be required to store all these 'flat file dbs'. I am assuming that the entities in the flat file will be modeled out into a relational design in the SQL Server. This means that what may take xx amount of space in a flat file will not require the same amount of space in a DB file because of the relational design, indexing, log file space, and other factors.
I would recommend designing out the relational model with basic indexing and referential constraints and import a minimum of 1000 random files so you can get an idea of how much space is required.
September 21, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Thanks for your suggestion.
Someone also suggested counting number of characters per row and multiply by the number of rows from the largest table. Wonder if this can work considering white spaces..
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