Linked tables best practice

[Farren]

A new customer wants me to figure out why their Access DB is "slow". One of the first things I noticed is that their front-end database is also on the same network share as the 20+ linked-to back-end databases. I understand they did that so the workstations can just have a shortcut to the front-end database on the server and they don't have to worry about distributing it out to the workstations when there are changes. I've always seen and used Access with the front-end database copied down to each workstation and only the links point to the server.




So, question: can having both the front-end and back-end databases on the same network share kill performance?


Also, I found an old thread on the Internet that long network paths (many directories deep) causes Access to be slow. Is that still true in Access 2013? Because they really have this buried deep in a folder hierarchy.


Thanks!


-Farren

[ranman256]

I distribute the FE to users to their network folder (with table links)
some depts are fast, some were slow.
I could only surmise that it depends on that departments cable, routers, wireless, etc.
When I tried the same slow FE on the faster dept PC, it ran fast. So...

[June7]

All advice I read is to run frontend from local workstation - because multiple users running same file increases chance for corruption. Some developers have code that copies frontend every time user opens so they always have the most recent. Some set up code that checks for a version and only copies when necessary. I used to do the latter until IT updated computers and permission for programmatic copy was lost. Very annoying. Now code opens File Explorer to folder with the updated file and users have to manually copy.