>>The maximum size of any file in VFP is 2GB. If you need to store data that exceeds that size you need to partition the data into multiple files.
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>Once a table is full - would archiving data in that table be a viable strategy? How long does it normally take for a table to fill up.
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>Thank Jim.

Henry,

The time it takes to reach capacity on a table is depentant on a lot of things. How many new records are added per time period? How many records are deleted and reused?

I would not design a database with the plan of archiving data to empty the tables and make room for more data. If there is a table that seems it is going to reach capacity raspidly I would design that entity to be stored in more than one table using partitioning. Partitioning is a logical appraoch to breaking up the data into more than one file. There are two types of partitioning, horizontal and vertical.

In horizontal partitionioning I put the fields in multiple files with a one to one relationship between the files. This emasn any one of the files has only part of the data in it.

Vertical partitioning also splits the data between multiple files however the fields are all in one file and the records are spread across many files. For example with a customer table perhaps the division is that all customer in a particulkar state are stored in one table and there is a table for every state.

In designing the database this way we avoid running into the 2gb limit.

I also am a proponent of reusing deleted records. So in my code when I want to add a new record, first I look for a deleted record to reuse and only if there is no deleted record will I append a new one.