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SQLite File size not increased with chunk size
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SQLite File size not increased with chunk size

(1) By anonymous on 2021-08-13 12:17:03 [link] [source]

Hello,

I am recording data quite rapidly in a SQLite Database, which results in a lot of fragments on the disc (typically 2500 frags/file). When I later on try to search through this database it takes a long time, mostly due to the fact that I have a hard disk drive (i.e., not a ssd). My goal is to get the fragmentations down to a minimum since this will increase my search performance.

I have tried setting the chunk size to maximum (~2GB), but if I exceed this amount of data it will start adding small records again, which results in fragmentations. I would like to have a specific chunk size that the database would increase when it's exceeding the current size, e.g. 2GB -> 4GB -> 6 GB. I actually though chunk size did this automatically, but does seem like it, or am I missing something? The initial size on the db is indeed 2GB. Do I have to close the database connection in order to make the logic discover that it will overshoot and then allocation a new chunk size?

Storage capacity is not an issue for me, I can withstand some overshoot on the database size (database being e.g. 1Gb, but data is only 700Mb).

Any feedback are welcome :)

(2) By Donald Griggs (dfgriggs) on 2021-08-13 14:26:55 in reply to 1 [source]

You might consider:

  • Creating a dummy table.
  • Use a CTE to insert sufficient data to grow your database to a maximum anticipated size
  • Run vacuum
  • Drop the dummy table.
  • Possibly run a defragmentation utility on your disk as appropriate

Your database should now retain its size and low fragmentation.

Of course, even if you should exceed your new file size, nothing tragic happens.

If you are frequently creating new such databases, you can prepare a big empty database file in advance, and just copy it into place for each new one.