David Data (9/28/2010)

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OTOH I designed our ETL system with [Postcode] [nvarchar](10) and then had to change it when I found records with postcodes like 'If out please leave by back door or with neighbour at No. 127'

David Data (9/27/2010)

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But I am curious as to why a VARCHAR(MAX) string that happens to contain say 100 chars is so much slower that a VARCHAR(100) that does? Its index and length values will have to be 32 bit numbers, but with 32/64 bit CPUs anything shorter tends to be less rather than more efficient anyway. As even a VARCHAR(100) is stored as a variable length string, I would not imagine the memory management issues are much different either. Or are they?