Which single file embedded DB for a network project?

I 开发者_如何学运维am looking for an embedded database for a VB 2010 application working over the network. The database file is on a shared network folder on a NAS server (NTFS). For this reason I cannot use any server database like mysql, sql server, etc...

There are nearly 20 PCs accessing the shared folder on the network. Each pc can open till 3 connections to the database, so we could have till 60 connections to the database. Mostly they just read the database, a writing to the database happens each 5-6 minutes and rarely at the same time, but it can happen.

In the past I had successfully used access+jet for such applications and never had problems, anyway with less network users.

I would still use access+jet (so I do not need to convert the whole database and code), but I would like to use something newer.

I have seen that SQLite is not jet right for network/shared enviroment. SQL Compact is also not right for shared folder. VistaDB is too expensive. Firebird could be an option, but I have no experience: It should be used in a production system and I do not know if I could trust it.

Any suggestion? Or shell I stay by access?

Thanks for replying.

Go with firebird. Stable, lightweight, free and very fast as a network and as an embedded database. I am using it everywhere. However the database cannot reside on a shared network folder. It must reside on a hard drive that is physically connected to the host machine.

VistaDB is good as an embedded database, but has awful performance as a network database because it is not true client-server.