We’re all running Access 2010 over a WAN from multiple cities across the US (eg, frontends are in Phoenix, Chicago, Boston and Albany NY, backend is in Phoenix)
Maybe ten or fifteen users connected to backend at same time from various cities.
Frontends are identical, all have same 15 linked tables, all to same UNC backend.
UNC looks like “\fs1-xxx1\projectname\xxx2\xxx-15257\0600-design_discipline\0612-architectural\xxxx xxxx Database\Backend Database\xx-xx xxxx xxxx.accdb”
Obviously running this over a wan is not a good idea, but such is life. No options there.
Is the length of the UNC path affecting overall Access performance such that it would be better to shorten it considerably?
Would mapped drive vs UNC help here?
Any other comments or suggestions on this scenario?
I already know it’s not recommended, but can’t change that.
Thanks for the help.
Joe
The length of the path to your db file affects performance, and the standard recommendation is to keep it as short as practical. See Tony Towes’ Microsoft Access Performance FAQ for more detailed information, under the heading “Place backend MDB on the root of the network share rather than several folders down”.
As I understand it, the issue is primarily due to the required access privilege checking for each successive folder level. So, if my understanding is correct, you can’t sidestep the problem by mapping the share to a drive letter … because the security checking must still happen at the file server.
Regarding other suggestions, make sure you have a reliable and tested backup strategy in place since this use case increases the risk of db corruption. It sounds like you are aware of the pitfalls with running an Access db across a WAN; other readers may benefit from reading Albert Kallal’s page: Using a wan with ms-access.