When Page Prefetching Takes a Back Seat – Exploring Trace Flag 652 in SQL Server
Learn how a trace flag affects SQL Server reading from disk and where this might be a useful thing for you to enable.
2025-09-24
2,471 reads
Chandan Shukla
Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale – Level 2: Page Server Architecture Explained
In Level 2 of the Stairway to Hyperscale, we learn about Page Servers in more detail.
2025-09-17
825 reads
Revisiting SQL Server Window Functions- A Practical Walkthrough
A look at window functions in SQL and how they can be used to query data without the restrictions of a GROUP BY.
2025-09-12
6,899 reads
Introduction of Azure SQL Hyperscale: Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale Level 1
In Level 1 of the Stairway to Azure SQL Hyperscale, we learn about the architecture and create a hyperscale instance.
2025-09-03
3,950 reads
Advanced SQL Server Page Forensics: Detecting Page Splits and Allocations with DBCC PAGE
Page splits are an often-overlooked performance killer in SQL Server. In this article, we take a forensic look at how serial inserts differ from mid-table inserts, revealing why inserting rows out of order causes hidden page splits, increased IO, and fragmentation. Using a wide-column table, we demonstrate both scenarios and decode their impact with page-level analysis.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-05)
2,553 reads
Deprecated but Forgotten: Why SQL Server’s Text, NText, and Image Data Types Still Haunt Your Systems
TEXT, NTEXT, and IMAGE columns have been deprecated for nearly two decades, yet they still silently haunt many SQL Server environments. This article explains their hidden limitations with practical demos and shows why migrating to VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX), and VARBINARY(MAX) is critical for modern performance, maintainability, and future upgrades.
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-06)
2,613 reads
How to safely and surgically restore filegroups
Most DBAs are familiar with full and differential ...
2025-09-02 (first published: 2025-08-01)
942 reads
What is Delayed Durability in SQL Server — And Should You Turn It On?
Learn about delayed durability in SQL Server and how it might help you with a heavily loaded server.
2025-08-29
8,618 reads
From Rows to Pages: The Hidden Chaos Behind SQL Server’s Sampling Methods
Learn about the TABLESAMPLE option in T-SQL and uncover some of the pitfalls of assuming this works as you think it does.
2025-08-22
2,147 reads
How a Legacy Logic Choked SQL Server in a 30-Year-Old Factory
When a SQL Server Express-based factory app started crawling, the culprit wasn’t hardware or network — it was a decades-old WHILE loop migrated from C/C++ to SQL. This real-world story breaks down how procedural habits, memory grants, and lack of window functions nearly derailed a production floor.
2025-07-28
14,417 reads
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Question of the Day
Upgrading Admin Queries
I have a query from a former DBA that we run on SQL Server 2025 to check on database metadata. This query references sys.sysaltfiles. I want to refactor this code to be more modern. Which DMV should I reference instead?
See possible answers