I am trying to build a customized attendance package for a local college, there are nearly 1300 students, hence I prefer to work with SQL Compact (SQL CE) since it is free to use unlike sql server, please correct me if I am wrong.
Also, please advice me if I could place the DB on a shared folder in network and install the software on all the PCs and insert and modify records as in normal PC does?
Thank you for your time.
TO be clear, the number of clients would be 30 approx only, and nearly 1300 records per day would be inserted.
SQL Server Express is also free – the 2008 R2 version supports up to 10 GB in database size.
This is a full blown server product which should be a lot better suited to such an environment with lots of users hitting the database at the same time
SQL Server Compact is intended for uses where you need to store data on the user’s local machine – it’s definitely not designed to be used as a server-like product with multiple users connecting to it at the same time.