Opening a sql server DB backup in my home

[contracer]

Hi,
I'm looking for any way to open a SQL server DB backup in my home's
computer.
This DB .bak file haves 12GB , so I think this DB will have about 60GB
when opened.
I got this DB backup file from my work, and my intention is study
queries in my home.
I installed SSMS 2012 , but when I try open this DB I get a message
that I only can open 10GB db backup file.
Thanks.

[Erland Sommarskog]

It sounds as if you have installed the Express Edition at home, and Express
is limited to 10 GB databases.

Since this is not likely to be production, get a license of Developer
Edition. It's 50 USD or less.


--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esq...@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx

[rja.ca...@gmail.com]

On Friday, 12 April 2013 11:53:51 UTC+1, Erland Sommarskog wrote:
> contracer (contr...@gmail.com) writes:
> > I'm looking for any way to open a SQL server DB backup in my home's
> > computer.
> > This DB .bak file haves 12GB , so I think this DB will have about 60GB
> > when opened.
> > I got this DB backup file from my work, and my intention is study
> > queries in my home.
> > I installed SSMS 2012 , but when I try open this DB I get a message
> > that I only can open 10GB db backup file.
>
> It sounds as if you have installed the Express Edition at home, and Express
> is limited to 10 GB databases.
>
> Since this is not likely to be production, get a license of Developer
> Edition. It's 50 USD or less.

Or of course just make a smaller database with less data in; however, that will not be a fully reliable model of the database at work - which matters
if you're trying to find ways to improve performance on the work server.
If you're using it just to practise and educate yourself, it's probably OK,
and, most of the work that you do on such a database at home /will/ be
valid when transferred to to the big, "production" server.

It's not for us to say whether you should take a real database home from
work - but I wouldn't do that.

If it's 60 GB in size then that is the factor that you'd have to get
down to 10 GB. Persuading a database file to shrink in size after
deleting data may be not straightforward. It also is discouraged in
real data processing, because it leads to issues such as "fragmentation".

Possibly you could copy the data into six or seven databases, each
10 GB, but I don't know if that's going to help you work around
the Express limitations. For testing queries, I don't know whether
a database for your home system in which some of the objects are
synonyms or views of tables in other databases will be significantly
different - or whether it'll work at all. But I think it'll make a
difference e.g. in foreign key relationships. But, would you learn more?
Probably not.

Certainly, using the Developer Edition will be the easier answer.
But fifty bucks is fifty bucks.

[contracer]

Thanks a lot for all answers.
I just bought this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2012-Developer-Edition-Retail-Box-/181071524571?pt=AU_software&hash=item2a28b432db