Doubt on Indec seek and scan.

• Joy Smith San

  SSC-Insane

  Points: 24877

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  February 3, 2010 at 4:55 am

  #137809

  Dear All,

  I have read that if the table is small SQL will do a index scan and not index seek.

  I have a 'Sales' table which has hardly 15 rows and a clustered index defined on 'SaleId' column.

  I executed a simple select query like

  SELECT * FROM Sales WHERE SaleID = 7 I checke

  When I checked the actual execution plan, I found that it's doing an index seek and not an index scan.

  Have I undertood the concept of scan & seek it wrongly.?

  Can anyone explain please.

  Thanks in advance.

• Gail Shaw

  SSC Guru

  Points: 1004514

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  February 3, 2010 at 5:23 am

  #1112770

  http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/2007/11/15/execution-plan-operations-scans-and-seeks/

  http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/2009/01/09/seek-or-scan/

  http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/2009/07/29/is-a-scan-a-bad-thing/

  Gail Shaw
  Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
  SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

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