Database. SQl Compact vs SQL Server

[sullivane]

I am going to be setting up a LS server here soon, I am wondering what the benefits of having LS on SQL Server vs SQL Compact?

Just seems like having it on the default installed Compact would be easier?

Thanks

[Susan_A]

As mentioned by cbeydler as well, SQL Server is recommended for databases of 1,000+ assets. SQL Server comes in several editions (Express, Standard...) and versions (2005, 2008...)

SQL Compact is fundamentally different from SQL Server, which SQL Server Express is an edition of. (SQL Compact is technically called SQL Server Compact, but we tend to refer to it as SQL Compact to differentiate it from "full" SQL Server installations.)

• SQL Compact is a "stripped down" database server that stores everything in a single database file, as mentioned by cbeydler.
  
• SQL Server (Express, Standard...) offers more features, bigger database sizes and better performance.

[cbeydler]

SQL Express will be better than compact I believe. Since it is an actual database and not keeping everything in a single file like compact, your read times should be better with that many assets.

[sullivane]

We will have about 1400 scanable devices and another 2000 that we will manually import. We don't have an SQL database already up. Would SQL Express be the same as compact?

[cbeydler]

We were running SQL Compact and were at about 1200 assets and just moved everything to our MSSQL server. If you plan on being anywhere near 1000 assets (this includes desktops, laptops, switches, monitors, printers, etc), I would highly recommend going the full server route. We were seeing major slow downs of the interface when trying to move pages, search, etc which all went away after moving the database onto our SQL Server.

Honestly, if you already have a SQL Server running for other databases, I would just go ahead and put your Lansweeper DB on there. No reason not to.

[Susan_A · Accepted solution]

SQL Compact is sufficient for most users. This knowledge base article explains when you should choose SQL Server.