Will Access support 35- 40 users writing to a Access database

Question

We are looking to have about 35-40 people writing to an access database via script on a shared drive. The metrics break down to them needed to write about 3-7 times an hour. Would Access support this without going ape on me.

Yes I would love to use this as a SQL server but that means going through massive amounts of red tape/meetings paperwork etc that I would prefer not to bother with

Answer 1

Could you not make them go with the free edition of SQL Server Express without the red tape?

In answer to your question, though, I've seen Access give big problems in environments with this many users, although that was pre 2007. I dunno how much it has changed.

If it were me, I'd avoid Access at all cost.

Answer 2

Could it? Yes. If you are very careful and perform locking and ensure that nobody steps on anybody else. Access is really not designed for any form of concurrency. I know of one place that managed to make it work in a very concurrent environment, but that environment basically logged everything and if the DB clobbered itself, it'd restore from the last backup and replay against the Access file automatically, so that the failures were transparent. I would not recommend following that course of action...

Should you do it? No. Is there any reason that you cannot use something like PostgreSQL or MySQL?