Work with Multiple Databases

See Also

A default VSS installation stores all its files in one centralized database. If you can, always store all your project files in one database. This is usually preferable to having more than one database, because of the following limitations inherent to multiple-database systems:

• You cannot share files among multiple databases.
  
  
• It is difficult to bring your multiple databases into one centralized system (you need to use the Archive utility).
  
  
• For security reasons, VSS's list of users and passwords is stored with the data. This approach can be a considerable advantage if security is the reason you want separate databases, but you must add new users separately to each database.

For these reasons, the recommended method is to organize your files into projects within a single database whenever that is possible. Sometimes, however, there is a requirement for more than one database. For example, large companies, especially those in which people are working on many diverse and relatively unrelated projects, may need to decentralize.