Having to switch from MS SQL 2005 to MS SQL Express 2008

[draneb]

Hello,

I am currently running my AC site on a VPS machine with MS SQL 2005 (NOT express) running on a shared SQL hosting machine.

I am hosting with ultima hosts and when my site goes down it doesn't just go down, it goes down for days. If you are thinking about them I wouldn't recommend it. So, I am having to switch hosting companies.

I talked with the new hosting company on the phone (made sure they had a phone number this time) and they told me to give MS SQL 2008 Express a try on the actual VPS machine before trying to host it on a different server. He claims there should not be any poor performance just running AbleCommerce.

1) Is that true? (should performance be okay)

2) I have a backup of my database. Both VPS machines will be using DotNetPanel. I created the backup using DotNetPanel.

What do I need to do to get it from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 Express?

I apologize if this is a dumb question. I have never had to do anything like this before.

Thank you very much!

[Michael Ward]

Hi there draneb
Although we do not recommend SQL Express for production site that decision is up to you. I have not done any restores of a 2005 database into 2008 but from what I have heard from others it should work fine.

If you do have problems you can always install a fresh copy of AbleCommerce on the target server and then use the DataPort tool to export your store data from the current store and then import it to the target server.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I have not done any restores of a 2005 database into 2008

I have done a few. All test / sample data, never in a live environment, but I don't recall any special steps or problems.

[compunerdy]

Why do you recommend against SQL express for production?

[Michael Ward]

SQL Express has limitations on it. I belive that the database can only grow to 4GB and on a multi processor system it will use only one processor.

[michael.p.larsen]

Speaking of databases, make sure you have an index on the LoweredUserName column in the ac_Users table!!
I didn't have one for a while, and my site went down when we had a bunch of users on it. The SQL server was pegged at 100%. I added the index and it immediately went down to 10%!

[compunerdy]

Well my DB is only 100mb and for now I am on sql 2008 express and the site is very fast.