Good Database?
 

Databases? Hey, if i were in need to store tons of data to a file and then use it later (relatively easily hopefully, please no sequential file crap). What would i use? I've used ini files before and trust me, I love them to death and rely on them for my every day use but I feel there is a need for a more suitable way to store data...

So I want to ask... What is a good database to store information in? (Non-Website/Connection Database)

Encryption is only wanted if the file size and the speed is still at a reasonable amount. I don't want to set 5 strings to a database and have it take 3 minutes to open it and have it save a 10meg file...

-- I'm new to databases, more importantly new to Visual Basic, but ALOT of EVERYTHING is so similiar to Delphi so I think I'll be fine learning about them :P. (I've used Delphi for about a year and love just about every aspect of it... But I am going to college in a few months and to get my degree i need to finish a couple VB classes 8(... )

Re: Good Database?
 

If you are using VB, look into the ADO.NET system. What you can do is access a Microsoft Access file and interact with it. Also research relational databases as well (if you haven't), it will save your life.

Re: Good Database?
 

If you're storing "tons of information", you might want to look at something more professional than Microsoft Access. I recommend MYSQL(http://www.mysql.com/) which is easy to use, and can handle a decent amount of information. There's also Oracle which is a bit more painful to install, but is geared towards lager projects.

Re: Good Database?
 

For a small amount of information, XML would probably be fine. It should be pretty easy with XLINQ with the .NET 3.0 framework or newer. XML will be slow on large amounts of data though.

If you're more worried about convenience or scalability, but still on the smaller end, you might look into SQL Server Express (comes with Visual Studio and probably with the Express versions as well). This provides largely the same interface as SQL Server, but the "database" is simply a file in your project. I'm not sure how well it works in deployment or about performance though, but I'd imagine it's decent for both.

If your data store is getting noticeably large, you'd want to move to a full database management system, such as MS SQL, MySQL, or Oracle (which is geared more towards enterprisey applications).

Re: Good Database?
 

Thanks for all the suggestions ^_^. I'm probably gunna try out SQL simply because it is so common from what i have seen :P.