Which Should You Use: VARCHAR or NVARCHAR?
You’re building a new table or adding a column, and you wanna know which datatype to use: VARCHAR or NVARCHAR?
2025-11-03
Data Storage
Identify Tables With Dropped Columns
How easily can we find tables with dropped columns that need cleanup?
2024-06-07
2,500 reads
Long Term Storage
Long term data storage isn't something we always need for databases, but it is something the world needs. A new technology has promise for those use cases, both in durability and preserving the algorithms needed.
2022-06-24
382 reads
Do We Care About Disks?
I ran across a tip on MSSQLTips from Joe Gavin recently, and it got me thinking about hardware and disks. For a lot of us, we deal with servers and storage, and not disks. While we might have a disk on a laptop or desktop, most of the production systems just attach to remote storage. […]
2021-11-03
293 reads
Storage 101: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Storage
Understanding all the storage options available to...
2019-12-30
SQL Server Storage Internals 101
This article is an extract from the book Tribal SQL. In this article, Mark S. Rasmussen offers a concise introduction to the physical storage internals behind SQL Server databases. He doesn't dive into every detail, but provides a simple, clear picture of how SQL Server stores data.
2013-10-21
3,767 reads
Blogs
Rolling Back a Broken Release
By Steve Jones
We had an interesting discussion about deployments in databases and how you go forward...
A bespoke reporting solution doesn’t have to cost the earth
By ChrisJenkins
You could be tolerating limited reporting because there isn’t an off the shelf solution...
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Forums
Lots of FKs
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Lots of FKs
Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data in Excel – Over the Internet
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Real-time On-prem SQL Server Data...
Can You Let Go of Determinism
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Can You Let Go of...
Question of the Day
Lots of FKs
In SQL Server 2025, what are the most outgoing and incoming FK references a table can have?
See possible answers