Other opinions on this are giving their experience. Which are all valid. For me the time to switch came with various requirments

Too many users all needing the same datafile. There are ways of handeling this without going to a server based soltuion... But it was one of the factors...
Additional requirments like having the app be be run from remote areas, from the desktop. Vfp Does not really handle this all that well without having some server connected as the database server. The backup requirments, being able to backup the data without having to make sure that the users logged out of the application.

While I agree there are features that VFP has in it which surpass SQL server, and thats why I use VFP as a front end to apps these days. Having your application connected to a server allows me to sleep better at night.. Feeling more secure that the data which is suppose to be there, is in fact there for the users.

So.. the decision is yours. Lots of pros and cons.
Cons - More expensive.
Harder to program in.
requires a new server
Pros runs remotly over the internet
More stable.
Can scale to hundreds or thousands of users.
More open, Other applications can read your data, eaiser.

So for me, it was a feature requirment, not the size of tables, or limits which caused the switch.

Bob Lee




>SQL server is obviously the better option with very large tables. Is there a general rule of thumb that says that the time to switch is when the largest table in the database exceeds X records? What is X?