which is faster for running SQL on small tabular data (250 records), XML or SQL server?

Question

I'm working on a small standalone .NET app needs to refer to some tabular data and its only just selects and at most these tables have 250 records. Previously developers have used a SQL server database. Would i get a performance advantage if i simply convert the table data to XML and read from that?

Also is there any kind of performance advantage over keeping database files in the App_Data folder for ASP.NET and attaching them dynamically as opposed to managing them separately? And this is probably a silly question, but if i do it that way does it mean that i don't have to install SQL server separately on the client's computer?

Answer 1

This depends on how your data is structured - if you're joining tables to each other then you'll be wanting to ensure you've some indexing strategy in place if you go along the XML route.

You won't ever have to have SQL Server installed on a client's PC when working with a web application unless you're doing something insane (which you're not!).

Answer 2

Use SQL Server CE (embedded datatbase)