Which .NET Framework Data Provider to Use?

To achieve the best performance for your application, use the .NET Framework data provider that is most appropriate for your data source. There are a number of data provider options for use in your applications. The following table provides information about the available data providers and which data sources a data provider is most appropriate for.

Provider	Details
SQL Server .NET Data Provider	Found in the System.Data.SqlClient namespace. Recommended for middle-tier applications using Microsoft SQL Server version 7.0 or later. Recommended for single-tier applications using the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) or Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or later.
OLE DB .NET Data Provider	Found in the System.Data.OleDb namespace. Recommended for middle-tier applications using Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 or earlier, or any OLE DB provider that supports the OLE DB interfaces listed in OLE DB Interfaces Used by the OLE DB .NET Data Provider in the .NET Framework SDK. For Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 or later, the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server is recommended. Recommended for single-tier applications using a Microsoft® Access database. Use of an Access database for a middle-tier application is not recommended.
ODBC .NET Data Provider	Found in the Microsoft.Data.Odbc namespace. The ODBC .NET Data Provider is available for download. Provides access to data sources that are connected to using an ODBC driver.
Oracle .NET Data Provider	Found in the System.Data.OracleClient namespace. The .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle, unlike the Microsoft OLE DB provider for Oracle, also supports new Oracle 9i datatypes, as well as ref cursors (useful for running Oracle stored procedures that return result sets). This provider, System.Data.OracleClient, is similar to the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server, System.Data.SqlClient. The Oracle .NET Data Provider is available for download

The fastest database read mechanism will be ADO.NET Data Readers, as opposed to Data Sets.