PCW File Size Limitations

[TimWhittemore]

Client has version 9 installed and have had some problems. For example, transactions just entered do not show in reports. Detail a/r and a/p ledgers do not tie to gl. A consultant told them PCW cannot "handle their volume". Peachtree support on the other hand says no problem: number of transactions does not matter and file sizes even over 100mb should be fine if adequate hard disk space exists (though some speed issues may occur) but no corruption problems should occur. Present journal row file size is 26 meg.

Does anyone know who is correct? Are there tweeks that can help improve btrieve performance?

[Robert Walraven]

The problem with Peachtree is not the size of the files but whether you have too many of a particular kind of journal record per period. The TrxNumber is stored in an integer field so the limit is 2^16 transactions per journal per period. If you do the math you find that this is about 175 records an hour 24 x 7. That would be pretty hard to achieve even with several people pounding on Peachtree all day long.

Where you get into trouble is when Peachtree has been used for several years. When the year is closed all data in internal periods 1-13 are rolled up into period 0. Suppose you have three years of data in period 0, then you would fill up the range of TrxNumbers with something like 5 entries an hour 24 x 7. Still a pretty high rate but one that actually can be achieved. We had a customer that actually did it.

There are other factors that can limit the amount of data but these are way beyond what is practical. For example, I believe that Btrieve 6.15, which is what Peachtree uses, has an upper limit on the file size of 1 GB.

BTW, a JrnlRow file of 26 MB is not all that big. I've seen several company data sets with files larger than this.

The only way to make Peachtree run faster is to get rid of all the old data and the only practical way to do this, if you have already tried doing a purge on closing the year, is to start over with a new set of company files - loading in your starting point for the year using the method described in the Peachtree User's Guide.

[Jacky Tse]

Try to search this forum for the word "performance" and see if you get some ideas. Some previous posts may help.