Supported Microsoft SQL Server Versions

You can use Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, or later with its latest service pack as the vault database engine. These Microsoft SQL Server editions are supported: Microsoft SQL Server Express, Standard, and Enterprise. Refer to Microsoft documentation to make sure that your Microsoft SQL Server edition has the necessary features and capabilities for your environment. M-Files supports the use of Microsoft SQL Server on Microsoft Windows.

With the Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition versions 2008–2017 table data and indexes can be compressed. This reduces the input/output activity of the disk, but also increases the CPU load by about 10 percent. Typically this means reduced database sizes.

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 and later support updateable columnstore indexes (in earlier versions, columnstore indexes are only available in Enterprise Edition). This enables better performance with sub-levels of views (such as Documents by project). This is especially beneficial when empty virtual folders are set to be hidden.

Guidelines for version selection, updates, and upgrades

• When you take Microsoft SQL Server into use as the database engine, we recommend that you use the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server that M-Files and your operating system support. For Microsoft SQL Server software requirements, refer to Microsoft documentation.
• Make sure that the server machine always has the latest service pack and cumulative updates installed. To do this, refer to Latest updates for Microsoft SQL Server.
• To upgrade your version of Microsoft SQL Server, refer to Upgrade SQL Server.