Originally posted by CaptainPinko
what would you guys suggest be the maximum number of records in a database that is being searched a lot? i have a database of events, but i wanna break it up into regions so that ppl gfrom vancouver aren't searchign throught stuff in toronto but i wanna know how small to make the groups because it is a bit of a pain w/ each additional table... any suggestions ort guidelines?
The answer: there is no answer to your question without analyzing the data. Is your system more geared to data retrieval than input or are the bulk of your queries running against non-indexed fields? Consider modifying your indexing scheme. Do you have millions upon millions of records in an Access database? Consider upgrading to SQL Server.

Ideally, you'll get notification of poor responsiveness from your users when you cross the performance threshold, you'll need to identify your Highwater mark. You'll need to determine how often you want to do split maintenance. A lot of what you'll be able to do is going to depend on your DBMS (it may make more sense to abandon Jet and use SQL Server, for example).