Key Characteristic File Geodatabase Personal Geodatabase
Description · A collection of various types · Original data format for of GIS datasets held in a file ArcGIS geodatabases stored and system folder. managed in Microsoft Access data · This is the recommended files. native data format for ArcGIS · This is limited in size and tied stored and managed in a file to the Windows operating system. system folder.
Accessibility · Single user and small · Single user and small
workgroups. workgroups with smaller datasets. · Some readers and one · Some readers and one writer. writer per feature dataset, · Concurrent use eventually standalone feature class or table. degrades for large numbers of · Concurrent use of any readers. specific file eventually degrades for large numbers of readers. Storage Format · Each dataset is a separate · Concurrent use eventually file on disk degrades for large numbers of · A file geodatabase is a file readers. folder that holds its dataset files. · All the contents in each personal geodatabase are held in a single Microsoft Access file (.mdb). Size Limits · One TB for each dataset. · Two GB per Access database. Each file geodatabase can hold · Effective limit before many datasets. performance degrades is typically · Each feature class can scale between 250 and 500 MB per up to hundreds of millions of Access database file. vector features per dataset Versioning Support Not supported Not supported Platforms Cross-platform Windows only Security and Permissions Operating file system security Windows file system security Database Administration File system management Windows file system management Tools Notes Allows you to optionally store Often used as an attribute table data in a read-only compressed manager (via Microsoft Access). format to reduce storage Users like the string handling for requirements text attributes.