# How big is the SDMB database? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [June 14, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110 "2018-06-14T20:41:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/1 "2018-06-14T20:41:49Z")
Just a thought I had. I used to program and administrate databases and am always interested, maybe a little obsessed, about such details. It’s been a while (almost twenty years), many posts and other things had to be stored. So can someone tell how big the data file for the database is in bytes (or is it a trade secret ;))? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/2 "2018-06-14T20:49:38Z")
I believe threads and posts are numbered sequentially, which would put us at roughly 21 million posts in a bit over 850,000 threads, going by the post and thread numbers of your post. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/3 "2018-06-14T21:01:27Z")
I imagine it’s really not _that_ big, in the sense of you probably have somewhere on the order of 50 million records in total (about 22 million pointer records, and 21 million records containing post content, plus any additional tables that are in there) As for size, I don’t know physically how big it might be; I always let the DBAs worry about that kind of thing! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/4 "2018-06-15T17:35:52Z")
So it fits in a breadbox. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/5 "2018-06-15T17:58:21Z")
Words take very little “space”. Images and videos really add up, but they are not allowed, just links to other places that hold images and videos. It may not be as huge as you might imagine. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/6 "2018-06-15T18:06:03Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Words take very little “space”. Images and videos really add up, but they are not allowed, just links to other places that hold images and videos. It may not be as huge as you might imagine. I know, I know, I’m in IT for 25 years, I don’t imagine it to be very big. But I was just interested in the actual size. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/7 "2018-06-15T18:12:26Z")
Hm. For a _very_ rough guess, take those 21 million posts and guess an average length of 500 8-bit characters (because, why _not_ that number) would give a database in the range of 10 GB uncompressed. So the real size is probably within a power of 2 or so of that number. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2018, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/8 "2018-06-15T20:14:47Z")
10GB, eh? So I could store the whole thing in my computer just in the extra space between the disks. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/9 "2018-06-17T18:47:29Z")
I have a 64 GB memory stick in my pocket. Text takes up very very little space – 10 GB for the whole SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/10 "2018-06-17T20:32:35Z")
And you are walking around with the whole SDMB in your pocket because… “Just research for this thread?” Tell it to the judge. 🙂 ETA: Charges withdrawn. Misread a hypothetical. Although I, for one, wouldn’t even know how to actually do such a thing as put SDMB in my pocket (isn’t that cute?) or hide it from **Zotti** under a thimble. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/11 "2018-06-17T21:01:55Z")
What sort of fun modeling could you do with it? NLP to flag suspected socks comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/12 "2018-06-18T00:03:11Z")
😕 “NLP?” ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2018, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/13 "2018-06-18T02:56:19Z")
A.I. - natural language processing ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/14 "2018-06-19T14:53:51Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > And you are walking around with the whole SDMB in your pocket or are you happy to see [her]? ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/15 "2018-06-19T21:51:24Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > I have a 64 GB memory stick in my pocket. \ [Mae West] Why don’t you come up and see me sometime, big boy? [/Mae West] ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-the-sdmb-database/816110/16 "2018-06-22T11:26:48Z")
> [@Tibby or Not Tibby](#): > > \ > [Mae West] Why don’t you come up and see me sometime, big boy? [/Mae West] It’s longer than she thought.