Optimum size

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:32 am

Originally posted by carolew

Having just imported my databases into iFamily, I am now contemplating tidying them up. I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on the optimum size for a database. How do you handle overlaps? I have several databases for my own family and my husbands. Should I have one giant one for everyone? Two--his and hers? Four--one for each of our parents?

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:32 am

Originally posted by curriouscat

I think that it is a matter of choice and what is convenient to you. If you are doing all the work on the databases, why not just have one db. If other people are working on different parts, it might make sense to have several dbs.

i have one database. It has 12,000 names. My wife, is working on her side, often at the same time as me, and she has her own database, on her separate iMac.

I don't think that there is a limit in size. The excellent tools that Keith has provided make it easy to find people and move around. So, the only limit is convenience and who wants to work on different parts at the same time.

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:32 am

carolew wrote:Having just imported my databases into iFamily, I am now contemplating tidying them up. I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on the optimum size for a database. How do you handle overlaps? I have several databases for my own family and my husbands. Should I have one giant one for everyone? Two--his and hers? Four--one for each of our parents?

The answer may also depend on how much memory you have, how fast your CPU is and whether you are using OSX 10.4 or OSX 10.5.

A database created on OSX 10.5 (Leopard) will have 5 more indexes than one that was created on OSX 10.4 (Tiger). The database created under Leopard runs a lot faster, thanks to improvement made by Apple in OSX 10.5.

If you are using OSX 10.4 then I recommend that you keep the size of the database to less than 30,000 people else it starts to slow down a bit.

On OSX 10.5 I have seen one database that contains 143,000 people that works fine on a 2.8GHz Core Duo Intel machine with 2 Gb memory. I would not try to run that database a G4 with 1 Gb memory, running OSX 10.4

If you

(a) originally created your database under OSX 10.4 AND
(b) have since upgraded to OSX 10.5 AND
(c) you have more than 5,000 people

THEN I suggest that you export the whole database to a Gedcom File and then reload it using Gedcom Load. You will need to recreate all the thumbnails of images when asked.

Keith

Keith Wilson · Post by **Keith Wilson** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:32 am

Originally posted by carolew

Thanks for that. I would have less than 5000 altogether and I've got OS X 10.5 so it should be fine.