Local Databases
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Local databases reside on your local drive or on a local area network. They use the InterBase proprietary APIs for accessing the data. Often, they are dedicated to a single system. When they are shared by several users, they use file-based locking mechanisms. Because of this, they are sometimes called file-based databases.
Local databases can be faster than remote database servers because they often reside on the same system as the database application.
Because they are file-based, local databases are more limited than remote database servers in the amount of data they can store. Therefore, in deciding whether to use a local database, you must consider how much data the tables are expected to hold.
Applications that use local databases are called single-tiered applications because the application and the database share a single file system.