how many US addresses can be geocoded in one batch?

[MerlinMarshall]

My title says it all.

My boss has asked me to geocode 13 million U.S. addresses.  All he wants is long/lat for each address.  He wants to know how long that will take.

Before I can tell him how long, I need to know how many addresses can be geocoded in one batch using ArcGIS v10.

Excel spread sheet size limit is 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns.

So my question specifically is, can ArcGIS V10 geocode 1 million U.S. addresses in one table?  If not, what is the limit?

I have tried searching for this answer, but have not been able to find it.

Thanks.

[MerlinMarshall]

I just got a response from someone in ESRI who told me the batch geocoding size for ArcGIS is unlimited.

They also recommend putting the data into a file geodatabase and not an Excel source.

Thanks, Gisele.

Now I need to figure out what a file geodatabase is, and how to get addresses from Excel files into one.

[TarunJaiswal]

Greetings!

Here are some of the links from web help which might interest you.

1) What is a file geodatabase?

2) Understanding how to use Microsoft Excel files in ArcGIS.

3) Adding a Microsoft Excel table to ArcMap.

4) Exporting tables.

Hope this will help.

Thanks!

[MerlinMarshall]

Thank you Tarun_Jaiswal.

Typically I convert Excel files to SPSS, then from SPSS to DBF, and then add data as a DBF file.  I just tried adding an Excel file directly without having to convert to DBF and it seems to work.

I've only worked with files which have had no more than about 10,000 addresses, so I'm trying to find an efficient way to run 13 million addresses.

I've been told I should put them in a geodatabase folder, but

a. I don't really know what that is,
b. how to get addresses into one, presumably from Excel, or
c. how to geocode them once they are in one,
d. I presume exporting the attribute table with my x,y is the same as what I have been doing.

Merlin