# Internal History Provider or SQLExpress DB

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Created:** [August 11, 2020, 11:02am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591 "2020-08-11T11:02:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![brarda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@brarda](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/brarda)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 11:02am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591/1 "2020-08-11T11:02:25Z")

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I wold like to understand if it’s better to use internal History Provider o SQLExpress DB for store data that change very often but i don’t need to store it’s for long time.  
What i need it’s a circular buffer.  
How i can check the filling status of the Internal History Provider?  
Thanks in advance for the informations

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591/2 "2020-08-11T15:15:28Z")

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What edition of Ignition are you using? Only Edge has a cap on the maximum number of records in the internal historian - it’s not an inherent limitation of SQLite, just a restriction we put onto Edge.

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**Author:** ![brarda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8797f3/32.png) [@brarda](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/brarda)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591/3 "2020-08-12T11:09:24Z")

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I’m using 8.0.12 edition. To make a circular buffer is it preferable to use the internal DB or the external DB?

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**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/internal-history-provider-or-sqlexpress-db/37591/4 "2020-08-12T15:29:29Z")

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It’s entirely up to you. There’s no disadvantage to SQLite, is what I’m trying to imply. It’s a single file on disk, which has advantages for backup, but there’s also some limitations as far as query functions available, and SQLite’s approach to data types is a bit odd. If you don’t plan on writing any manual queries, I highly doubt you’ll notice a difference. The “internal” DB (a bit of a misnomer, it’s not internal to Ignition, really) historian also doesn’t require any additional installation or configuration.