Does anyone have any experience setting up SQL server with the data
stored on an external (USB / Firewire) hard drive.

This setup would be used by 1 or 2 users for data analysis, it would
not be intended as a production server.

If anyone has tried this, I am interested in any idea of what size
database (in GBs) could be analyzed effectively off of an external hard
drive on a fast (dual-core) laptop.

Thank you,

Matt

Hi

I have used a USB disc as a stop-gap solution, accessing a USB disc is not
the fastest or devices and it is noticably slower than the internal hard
drive. If you are looking at data intensive activities I would not recommend
this.

If you do have a database on an external hard drive make sure that the
external disc is switched on before the PC otherwise if SQL Server can not
access the data files the database will be marked as suspect.

John

"mrobins@gmail.com" wrote:

> Does anyone have any experience setting up SQL server with the data
> stored on an external (USB / Firewire) hard drive.
>
> This setup would be used by 1 or 2 users for data analysis, it would
> not be intended as a production server.
>
> If anyone has tried this, I am interested in any idea of what size
> database (in GBs) could be analyzed effectively off of an external hard
> drive on a fast (dual-core) laptop.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Matt
>
>