To improve database performance, you can enable write caching for block writes.

If your database must support large branching operations, you should be aware that virus checkers degrade performance, as they must perform many database accesses.

Under normal use, a Visual SourceSafe database should not exceed 3 to 5 GB. Performance is degraded for large databases, which take longer to perform normal operations and maintenance tasks, such as running the ANALYZE utility. Be sure to take all measures to limit the size of the databases for your team environment. See How to: Reduce the Size of a Database.

Although you can store databases on any Windows-compatible file server, database performance is best on Windows NT. Network operations are generally faster. In addition, in the server-based Windows environment you can run ANALYZE and other highly intensive file I/O operations directly on the server, which can greatly decrease execution time.

To ensure optimal performance, use the ANALYZE utility to detect and repair problems in the database structure. When you run ANALYZE regularly, especially in high-use situations, you can discover small problems and fix them before they become worse. Microsoft occasionally updates ANALYZE to improve performance. For more about the use of ANALYZE, see How to: Find and Repair Data Corruption.

To optimize the speed of Visual SourceSafe commands, you can disable any of the following using the SourceSafe Options dialog box: shadow folders, journal files, project rights, keyword expansion.

You can also change the Compare files by setting in the Local Files tab of the SourceSafe Options dialog box. This setting determines if you already have the latest copy of a file in your working folder. The Time option sometimes does not behave as you expect when you try to get earlier versions. A solution is to occasionally delete your local copy to force a get operation to occur.