Company file on SSD?

[BookemDanno]

Our company file is quite large (yeah, I know that Intuit recommends that we collapse past years to discard historical detail, but we really don't wanna).

Operation is very slow due to read/writes (long waits listening to the disk grinding away).

QB Pro 2010
Single user (not shared--at least not at present).
Windows XP Pro on a two-year-old quad-core desktop.

I would like to put the company file (and whatever else is causing the read/write bottleneck) onto a SSD. I'm not looking to put anything else on that volume. I don't want to end up maxing out a 100- or 200-GB SSD by including all the program files for the dozens of other installed applications that aren't experiencing speed problems (but I will if that's the only way to make it work).

Nor am I really interested in reinstalling Windows onto the new disk (but, again, if that's the only way to do it, then maybe I'll have to look at larger SSDs). [Then again, if I have to do a new install of the OS, I might as well take the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7, because, at some point, Intuit will likely drop XP support for future versions of Quickbooks, anyway.]

Is it possible to move just QB onto a separate drive, or does it have to be on the startup volume?

What else would have to go on there?--Would it be just the company file, the whole Documents\Intuit folder, or the entire All Users\Documents folder? How would I do it so that the system can find it? Would I need to change some Registry entries?

Would I also have to move the Program Files folder in order to experience any significant speed improvement from the SSD? Would I just reinstall QB and specify the new location? (It has been a long time since I installed, and I don't recall whether there is even an option to put it anywhere except the default directory.) Again, how can I get the system to find it?

Also. how could I get Windows and Quickbooks to use the SSD instead of the HDD for paging?

Sorry if these seem like real newbie questions. I find that I lack a lot of what seems to be pretty basic knowledge of how Windows works. When I monkey with the nuts and bolts of the OS, it's usually only because I'm following some online instructions to fix specific problems, not because I have a good grasp of what I'm doing.

Dan

[Joe Williams]

Usually the slowdown is caused by low memory. The larger the file the more memory it needs. If the file is large when windows accesses it, it may
page out" part of what it just read.
If you copy the file and rename it Old Data-2012 then condense the current file, it should speed up the access some.
It will be better if you start a new file at the beginning of the fiscal year with just the Open transactions and the account balances.

[cojhl2]

Here is what I would do:

Back up the company file. Then restore it through the normal restore process and place it on any drive you wish.

This not only is a way to get the company file moved but it checks your current backup restore procedures.

Then next time you open the company file be sure and point to the new one.

[BookemDanno]

Originally Posted by Joe Williams

Usually the slowdown is caused by low memory. The larger the file the more memory it needs. If the file is large when windows accesses it, it may "page out" part of what it just read.

Well, our memory is limited by the OS (32-bit XP). Given that the RAM is already at the maximum, our paging speed is the bottleneck there. How can I get it to page to a SSD?

If you copy the file and rename it Old Data-2012 then condense the current file, it should speed up the access some.

We are loathe to do that because we still want convenient access to historical transaction detail (not just summary entries for the Chart of Accounts). (Manager: "When did we buy that box of self-sealing stembolts to fix the wall and how much did we pay?" Me: "I don't know. There were 26 months with Facility Repairs expenditures between 2003 and 2007. It was probably during one of those. I will have to open each one of those years to track it down. I'll have an answer for you in a couple hours.")

It will be better if you start a new file at the beginning of the fiscal year with just the Open transactions and the account balances.

That might be even less convenient because the old file wouldn't have any of the current data, and the current one wouldn't have any of the old. We, thus far, still prefer the slow response of a large file over being unable to view "the big picture" in one place.

It sure would be nice if QB could archive data for closed years into another file and then extract it on-the-fly as needed.

95% of what we do needs instant access only to this year and last year. But, for that other 5%, we need to be able to view the whole messy shebang, with all current and historical detail both preserved.

If the historical detail could all be kept for reference in a single, huge file, rather than in multiple single-year files, we would have started using a condensed working file long ago. But I don't believe there's any way to merge newer transactions into a file one year at a time.

It would be great if, when you condense years in the active file, it could append all the transaction detail for those years to a separate, cumulative archive file. (That is, the single, detailed archive file gets added to every time you condense a period in your working file.)

Furthermore, when you restore the archive file to view it, QB could ask if you also wish to sychronize it with the new transactions from your Active Years working file (to create a comprehensive, but current, company file). I'm sure it would be slow, but when you're in a situation where you need to be able to report both current and past detail data all from one place, it would be quite useful.

And then, whenever you view the resultant file (opening the huge, unwieldy comprehensive company file, that is--not restoring the archive file, which only has closed years), it would warn you that it will not reflect any later changes made to the Active Years file and also that any changes made to the comprehensive file will not affect the Active file. (If the comprehensive file has become obsolete due to activity on the Active Years file, you could always restore from the archive file again and re-synchronize with the current data.)

Dan