bteraberry (10/2/2012)
ScottPletcher (10/2/2012)
Maybe I'm missing something.Why not just ALTER the column to be a bigint instead of an int?
He said these are very big tables. Altering the column means that every single records needs more storage space to accommodate the larger data type. Tons of downtime is likely to result because in most environments the extra space won't be available without shuffling everything around.
He packed a huge table 100% full? Yeah, that's a mistake for a number of reasons, particularly in SQL Server. Even turning on certain options / features lengthens rows in SQL Server.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) A socialist is someone who will give you the shirt off *someone else's* back.