Eduardo A. Salgado wrote:

> We prefer the idea of a separate database than adding a table to the
> already big (2-8 GB) databases at our customer sites.
>
> * What are the advantages of using a second database?

Faster backup/restore.
It is easier to move it to another server to reduce the load.

> * What are the advantages of adding a table to an existing database?

It is easier to make queries.
If you have tables in separate databases, you can't do joins directly.

> * What suggestions do you have based on your experience?

If tables are ofter queried, and those queries require that you join data with
data in already existing database, then it is smarter to have a single
database. If cross-table queries are run rarely, you can always pump the data
when needed and query it then.

The third option (if you have resources) would be to have both the separate
databases and a single database that contains it all. Do the work on separate
databases and replicate everything to single database. That way you can enjoy
benefits of both approaches, but at the cost of storage space + resources
needed for replication.

Personally, I always go with single database if tables have any connections
between them.

--
Milan Babuskov
http://fbexport.sourceforge.net
http://www.flamerobin.org