I want to show the user detailed progress information when performing potentially lengthy database operations. Specifically, when inserting/updating data that may be on the order of hundreds of KB or MB.

Currently, I'm using in-memory DataTables and DataRows which are then synced with the database via TableAdapter.Update calls. This works fine and dandy, but the single call leaves little opportunity to glean any kind of progress info to show to the user. I have no idea how much data is passing through the network to the remote DB or its progress. Basically, all I know is when Update returns and it is assumed complete (barring any errors or exceptions). But this means all I can show is 0% and then a pause and then 100%.

I can count the number of rows, even going so far to cound how many are actually Modified or Added, and I could even maybe calculate per DataRow its estimated size based on the datatype of each column, using sizeof for value types like int and checking length for things like strings or byte arrays. With that, I could probably determine, before updating, an estimated total transfer size, but I'm still stuck without any progress info once Update is called on the TableAdapter.

Am I stuck just using an indeterminate progress bar or mouse waiting cursor? Would I need to radically change our data access layer to be able to hook into this kind of information? Even if I can't get it down to the precise KB transferred (like a web browser file download progress bar), could I at least know when each DataRow/DataTable finishes or something?

How do you best show this kind of progress info using ADO.NET?