>The original zipped fixed length text file take up 487 Megs (there is actually a total of 927 text files in zip form).
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>Each record has 30 fields and the total length of each record is 182 bytes. There are some fields that can be discarded and doubtless the other vendors have done away with some of them. At the most I could drop about 50 bytes from each record so that really doesn't help much. I'd still end up with multiple Gigs.
>
>I need to do searches on this data, indexes, SQL queries, etc. I'm not sure that Word would help get this data down to 450 Megs or help with doing complex searches would it?

I guess the next question is: what data types are you dealing with ? Numbers, Dates, Text, all of the above ?

FoxPro "numerics", for example, take up a lot of space; these are candidates for binary fields. Even dates, given a range, could be converted from 8 bytes to perhaps 2 bytes. If this is a "static" DB, consider BLOCKSIZE 0 for memos; there will then be no padding.

Haven't had any experience with "PHBase" (sic); it's supposed to be able to search memos. Perhaps your text can be put in memo fields.

What about a massive "help file" ? Help compilers and "engines" like the MSDN KB "pack" and "index" information ...

With "help", you can even hyper-link to subsets of your data.

Part of your research (I imagine) should be to identify the "types of queries" you will need to satisfy; or is it all ad-hoc ?

Offer to supply a DVD drive ?