Terabyte Quickbooks data file ...

[thecomputerguy]

I have a client who has never really stopped complaining that their Quickbooks is slow. I think its because they are using the wrong program for what they are doing. There is industry specific software available for them but they don't want to fork over the $15k for it.

They are a janitorial supply company so they sell anything from toilet paper, to hand wash, to tampons to commercial buildings (on a large scale). So they track and manage thousands of products of inventory and invoicing.

Their QB data file has finally hit 1TB and they are back saying its running slower than normal. The only trick I've come up with is to delete the .TLG file since we Don't use the built in Quickbooks backup.

Anyone have anywhere I could go with this? Getting them off Quickbooks is going to be near impossible ... anyone have any experience chopping up a QB data file?


edit: They are using Quickbooks Enterprise Edition

 

[angry_geek]

I'd say consult quickbooks enterprise pro support on this one. That is a huge file!

 

[14049752]

Are they doing proper maintenance on the file?

Things like creating a backup, condensing it, closing out past years, making sure old users are deleted, etc?

First, make a backup of the file. Then, condense it and remove transactions from years ago (they'll need to decide the cutoff range), and work with the new condensed file. If anything needs to be referenced from years ago, only a select few should have access to the old file.

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

I'd say consult quickbooks enterprise pro support on this one. That is a huge file!

Even if they are running their network on 100% fiber, I agree with angry_geek. It more likely is that there may be a bunch of dead information on accounts, products and such that havent been pruned or merged ever. Good luck with that.

 

[BrentfromZulu]

I don't know much about Quickbooks, but I think I heard that simply sunning a backup will resolve a good number of Quickbooks issues.

 

[pceinc]

I have a client in the same industry, janitorial supplies. They have been using DacEasy for 10+ years. They have DacEasy Accounting and Order Entry, which are two separate modules(applications) that work together. Each year a new data folder gets created so they have a folder for 2000, 2001, 2002, etc... DacEasy is now a Sage product now.

This Friday I am upgrading my janitor client from DacEasy v12 to 2014. They are currently on v12 which is not compatible with Win7. They have been on XP for years because they didn't want to fork out the couple thousand to upgrade to the latest version of DacEasy. Well, the "XP is dead in April" email I sent to them last week sparked the project to upgrade. I have to install DacEasy 2010, convert all their data, install 2012, convert all their data, then install 2014 and convert their data.

 

[Skillachi]

I suggest you have a look at this link from Quickbooks support site, on what to do in this situation. I've Just transfer our quickbooks software and files to new systems couple weeks ago. I've never heard of a quickbooks file being that huge. Then again some clients don't wanna listen, I see it all the time they hate to upgrade.

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/SLN54633

 

[lan101]

wow Im surprised it even works. I think I remember reading somewhere on quickbooks support site that they dont recommend bigger than a couple hundred MB's. I have one small company that I do work for that has like a 1.5GB and only 3 users. They complain that it's slow at times. 1 TB yikes

 

[Skillachi]

wow Im surprised it even works. I think I remember reading somewhere on quickbooks support site that they dont recommend bigger than a couple hundred MB's. I have one small company that I do work for that has like a 1.5GB and only 3 users. They complain that it's slow at times. 1 TB yikes

I think they suggest not going over 500MB...

"While there are no actual hard limits for the company file, performance may be impacted if you have; a large file (over 500mb for Pro/Premier and 1.5GB for Enterprise), more than 7 years worth of transactions, or are exceeding any of the list limits, you may be best suited to either condensing your QuickBooks data or starting a new company file"

 

[SynapseTech]

How are they accessing the data file? Network? Data Server? If its a data server is it running raid 0?

I would say that the bottle neck would be the access to the data file. Hard drive cache, SATA spec, and raid type play a large roll. Obviously, outside of SSD, the fastest configuration is going to be Raid 0 running on SATA 3 (or higher) with 64 MB cache hard drives.

BUT, checking with the software vendor is the best bet. Quickbooks is a hackjob of a program anyways. Its slow but good for small businesses. If they are too big and need a different piece of software have them do a cost analysis on how much time is wasted working with quickbooks, and the potential threat of a corrupted database.

 

[14049752]

If its a data server is it running raid 0?

Holy cow, I hope not.

 

[HCHTech]

Yowza. QB must be collapsing under it's own weight with that data file! That is so far over the recommended size, I don't think there is much to do that would help.

Just FYI, there was a maintenance release this past week that addressed slow opening of data files. On my own tiny 100MB file, it halved the opening time.

 

[thecomputerguy]

The data file is on a brand new server with raid1(os)/raid1(data)

I could barely get them to spend the $3500 on a new server since their old 'server' was a home built computer running xp pro with 1x OS Drive and 2x Data in RAID 1 on an onboard raid controller on a $120 motherboard.