Mass data export from SQL Server to Excel in VB - sql

Question

I have some code that works for smaller data sets. I get an 'out of memory' error with the huge data sets I use though (800k rows, 25 columns). I was trying to figure out a way to change this to mass export column by column, or maybe split up sets of rows, instead of the whole thing at once.
Clearly it can't handle that much data. I couldn't figure out how to separate it out some. Any ideas? Thanks!
For Each dt As System.Data.DataTable In ds.Tables
' Copy the DataTable to an object array
Dim rawData(dt.Rows.Count, dt.Columns.Count - 1) As Object
' Copy the column names to the first row of the object array
For col = 0 To dt.Columns.Count - 1
rawData(0, col) = dt.Columns(col).ColumnName
Next
' Copy the values to the object array
For col = 0 To dt.Columns.Count - 1
For row = 0 To dt.Rows.Count - 1
rawData(row + 1, col) = dt.Rows(row).ItemArray(col)
Next
Next
' Calculate the final column letter
Dim finalColLetter As String = String.Empty
Dim colCharset As String = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
Dim colCharsetLen As Integer = colCharset.Length
If dt.Columns.Count > colCharsetLen Then
finalColLetter = colCharset.Substring( _
(dt.Columns.Count - 1) \ colCharsetLen - 1, 1)
End If
finalColLetter += colCharset.Substring( _
(dt.Columns.Count - 1) Mod colCharsetLen, 1)
' Fast data export to Excel
Dim excelRange As String = String.Format("A1:{0}{1}", finalColLetter, dt.Rows.Count + 1)
excelSheet.Range(excelRange, Type.Missing).Value2 = rawData
excelSheet = Nothing
Next

Answer 1

Is there other code that manipulates the excel spreadsheet? If not, it would probably be faster to just write this out to a plane text file in CSV format. Excel will open the CSV and present it like a normal spreadsheet.