Access on NAS - does it work?

[Chris]

Hi All,

I am trying to find out if Access can read / write to a
mdb that resides on a Network Attached Storage Server.
These servers do not support block-level centrailized
network apps (like Oracle, Exchange server, SQL) but I
would think that they would support personal databases,
like Access97 or Dbase III.

Anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

Thank you for any information you may be able to provide.

Chris

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Assuming that the files are able to be opened with full read/write (and
delete) abilities, then I have to think the storage server will work just
fine.

Of cause, if you are talking about multi-user, then things perhaps are
slightly different. However, again I don't see why the server can't be used.
However, you do want to run a split mdb file, as this is standard fair for
multi-user access appcltions, and any other approach is not reliable. Check
out:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/splitapp.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/accessdev/articles/bapp97/chapters/ba15_3.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

I am trying to find out if Access can read / write to a
mdb that resides on a Network Attached Storage Server.
These servers do not support block-level centrailized
network apps (like Oracle, Exchange server, SQL) but I
would think that they would support personal databases,
like Access97 or Dbase III.

They might work. I say this because MS Access uses some non standard
methods of doing "phantom" locks on the .ldb files. While MS
networking, some versions of SAMBA (the MS networking driver for Unix)
and some versions of Novell Server and/or clients work well, other
versions do not.

If your NAS vendor states that Access works because they've tested it
then fine. But otherwise only testing in a multi-user environment
will show that they do indeed work for Access.

Note that Foxpro and Dbase may work just fine on such a setup.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

MS Access uses some non standard methods of doing

"phantom" locks on the .ldb files.

I say the methods are standard and have been since DOS 2.???



However, the application of the method is unusual. Locks are
"phantom" because they lock parts of the LDB file that do not
contain any data. Potentially, this might not be supported by
a file system or network protocol: the people building the
record locking protocol might have assumed that locks would
only be requested on parts of the file that had previously
been written.

Some other database products use the same locking methods, but
only lock parts of a file that already contain data.

File sharing and record locking is not required for simple file
operations like read/write/delete, so I would expect that some
storage systems devices would not be able to support any
application that requires file sharing and record locking.
Note that DOS 2.0 (?) did not support file sharing: I am sure
there are other systems that are the same.

However Access will also run in a read-only mode that does
not require record locking, which works on several non-standard
file systems.


(david)