A Comparison of SQL Server 2000 with Access 2000

May 14, 2003

Introduction

Often people in newsgroups ask about some comparison of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access. In this article, I compare Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Microsoft Access 2000 regarding hardware and software requirements, price, features and products limits.

Platform comparison

SQL Server 2000 only works on Windows-based platforms, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows CE.

Microsoft Access 2000 can be installed under the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 (SP6), Windows 2000, or Windows XP or later.

Hardware requirements

To install SQL Server 2000, you should have the Intel or compatible platforms and the following hardware:

Hardware	Requirements
Processor	Pentium 166 MHz or higher
Memory	32 MB RAM (minimum for Desktop Engine), 64 MB RAM (minimum for all other editions), 128 MB RAM or more recommended
Hard disk space	270 MB (full installation), 250 MB (typical), 95 MB (minimum), Desktop Engine: 44 MB Analysis Services: 50 MB minimum and 130 MB typical English Query: 80 MB

Microsoft Access 2000 is included in the Professional and Developer Editions of Microsoft Office 2000, but can be purchased separately also. If you install Access 2000 with other Office 2000 products, the hardware requirement can be increased in comparison with the single Access 2000 installation.

To install Microsoft Access 2000, you should have the following hardware:

Hardware	Requirements
Processor	Pentium 75 MHz or higher
Memory	8 MB of RAM required for Access 2000, plus 4 MB of RAM for each application running simultaneously, plus memory for the operation system: 16 MB of RAM for Windows 95 or Windows 98 32 MB of RAM for Windows Me or Windows NT 64 MB of RAM for Windows 2000 128 MB of RAM for Windows XP
Hard disk space	Access 2000 requires over 30 MB of hard disk space

Software requirements

SQL Server 2000 comes in six editions: Enterprise, Standard, Personal, Developer, Desktop Engine and SQL Server CE (a compatible version for Windows CE) and requires the following software:

Operating System	Enterprise Edition	Standard Edition	Personal Edition	Developer Edition	Desktop Engine	SQL Server CE
Windows CE	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Windows 9x	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with Service Pack 5	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows NT 4.0 Server with Service Pack 5	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows NT 4.0 Server Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 5	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows 2000 Professional	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows 2000 Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows 2000 Advanced Server	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows 2000 DataCenter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Windows XP Professional	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

In comparison with SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Access 2000 does not have any editions. Access 2000 can be installed under the following operation systems: Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6 (SP6), Windows 2000, or Windows XP or later.

Price comparison

SQL Server 2000 is currently available under two licensing options:

Processor license.
Server/per-seat client access license (CAL).

The processor license requires a single license for each CPU in the computer running SQL Server 2000 and includes unlimited client access. You can buy this license when you do not know the number of the clients (for example, if your users will connect to SQL Server 2000 through the internet). This license usually is cheaper than Server/Per-Seat CAL when there are many users connected to SQL Server databases.

The Server/per-seat client access license (CAL) requires a license for the server and the licenses for each client device. You can use this licensing option when the customers do not need access beyond the firewall and the number of clients is low (for example, 10-20 users for SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition or 30-40 users for SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition).

Licensing Options	SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition	SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition
Processor	$4,999 per processor	$19,999 per processor
Server/Per-Seat CAL	with 5 CALs - $1,489 with 10 CALs - $2,249	with 25 CALs - $11,099

Microsoft Access 2000 like Office 2000 is no longer available at retail for individual purchases. Microsoft Access 2002 and Office XP can be purchased now. The process of obtaining a previous version of a Microsoft product is called "downgrading." Downgrade rights apply to volume license customers only.

This is the current price for Microsoft Access 2002. Because Access 2002 is included in the Professional and Developer Editions of Microsoft Office XP, the prices of the Office XP Professional Edition and Office XP Developer Edition are also included.

Products	New User Price	Upgrade Price
Microsoft Access 2002	$339	$109
Office XP Professional Edition	$579	$329
Office XP Developer Edition	$799	$549

Features comparison

Microsoft Access 2000 falls into the desktop category and works best for individuals and workgroups managing megabytes of data. In comparison with SQL Server 2000, Access uses file-server architecture, rather than client-server architecture. Access 2000 has many restrictions in comparison with SQL Server 2000 and cannot be used in the case where you want to build a stable and efficient system with many concurrent users.

Some SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000 restrictions:

Feature	Access 2000	SQL Server 2000
SMP support	Not Supported	Supported
Tables	Relational tables	Relational tables, Temporary tables
Triggers	Not Supported	AFTER triggers, INSTEAD OF triggers
Procedures	Not Supported	Microsoft T-SQL statements
User-defined functions	Not Supported	Scalar functions, Inline table-valued functions, Multistatement table-valued functions
Views	Not Supported	Supported
Transaction logging	Not Supported	Supported
Recovery	Recovery to last backup	Recovery to last backup, recovery to the point of failure, recovery to a specific point in time
Integration with Windows NT security	Not Supported	Supported

SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000 limits

Some SQL Server 2000 and Access 2000 products limits:

Feature	SQL Server 2000	Access 2000
database size	1,048,516 TB	2 GB plus linked tables size
objects in a database	2,147,483,647	32,768
user name length	128	20
password length	128	14
table name length	128	64
column name length	128	64
index name length	128	64
Number of concurrent users	limited by available memory	255
columns per table	1024	255
table size	limited by available storage	1 GB
number of indexes in a table	250	32
number of columns in an index	16	10
bytes per row	8060	2000
number of tables in a query	256	32
columns per SELECT statement	4096	255
nested subqueries	32	50
number of enforced relationships	253	32
SQL statement size	65,536 * Network packet size (4 KB, by default)	approximately 64,000

Conclusion

If you need to make a scalability, security and robustness system, you should use SQL Server instead of Access. Because Access 2000 does not support atomic transactions, it does not guarantee that all changes performed within a transaction boundary are committed or rolled back. SQL Server is integrated with Windows NT security, but Access is not. Access 2000 databases cannot be restored to the point of failure, while SQL Server databases can be. This makes administering Access 2000 databases more expensive than administering SQL Server 2000 databases.

Therefore, you should use Access 2000 database, only when you need to store a small amount of data in a single user (or few users) environment, or when you have very low resources, such as memory or disk. In other cases, use MSDE or SQL Server.

Literature

1. SQL Server 2000 Books Online
2. Office 2000 System Requirements
3. Maximum Capacity Specifications
4. Microsoft Access 2000 Maximum Capacities
5. Microsoft SQL Server: Microsoft Access 2000 Data Engine Options

» See All Articles by Columnist Alexander Chigrik