What is the limit of source repositories in Visual Source Safe 2005

Question

We're thinking of using VSS for a simulation development project so we will have both code and a pretty sizeable number of binary files (possibly several GBs or larger). I've seen references on the web to VSS limits of around 4-5 GB but I can't find any definate specs.

My first choices would be SVN or Perforce but the team has a few people who really like VSS -

Answer 1

The problem here is that there are people on the team that like VSS. Please direct them to this post:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/690766/vss-or-svn-for-a-net-project/690847#690847

If that doesn't break their spirit, the easiest thing to do would be:

1. Check out your project on a remote computer through a VPN connection
2. Edit a bunch of files.
3. Start a commit
4. Drop your VPN connection in the middle of the commit

Instant VSS database corruption! Then make the people who like VSS fix it.

Answer 2

Given Microsoft's update history for VSS (i.e. minimal updates to the actual tool), I would continue to follow the Microsoft VSS best practices of a max DB of 3-5GB.

Answer 3

Hi,

my experience with VSS before we migrated the teams to ClearCase is that 6 GB definitely break the tool.

I think the recommended limit by Microsoft is 2 GB, and the maximum it can support is said to be around 4 (see link in Malachi's answer).

I definitely know one of the VSS DB grew up to 6 GB here and get corrupted beyond repair because of the sheer size.

Hope this help, cheers,

Thomas