Hey all-

Two months ago I implemented a sales tracking system in FM 8.5 Windows, running on a 6 person network, hosted by FileMaker Server. Without any orders the file was about 30MB. Two months later, with about 700 orders, the file size is 60MB. I'm pretty sure this is largely due to attaching PDFs and faxes to the orders as container files. My question: is this type of growth going to present a problem? When does file size start to have negative side effects? I chose to store the actual file as opposed to a reference to avoid having to manage storing the files on a network directory, but is this going to become unsustainable? Or is it no problem? If in a year the file is 500MB is that going to cause issues?

Any input would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Nate

A 500MB file is still manageable, but you are right to be concerned. Larger files are more time-consuming to recover, take longer to copy backups, etc. I would start thinking about some kind of archiving mechanism as well as possibly moving the graphics to a separate file. Or as you mentioned, revisit the idea of a network directory and file references. But at your present rate of growth, you have plenty of time to work on it.