Max number of rows for a table

  • Hi everybody,

    I have concerns regarding the maximum number of rows which can be handled by a table.

    My table is not very wide:12 columns, has currently 15330000 rows and is growing very fast (40000 rows a day). I am monitoring it closely and so far it works ok, but what will be the limit?

     

    thanks

     

     

     

  • Hey Jacques,

       You can search for "Maximum Capacity Specifications" in BOL.  You are only limited to available storage.

     

    Michael.

  • Thanks,

    I checked. Perfect response for me. A matter of server power only.

     

  • This is not necessarily true.

     

    If you have a primary key on the table (you probably do) you will be limited by that; for example if you use an int for your primary key you would be limited to 2^32 rows, a total of about 4 billion rows, numbered from about negative 2 billion to positive 2 billion. If the column is an identity column with the seed set to 1 you are limited to about 2 billion rows.

     

    While it may not seem fun it is always important to consider the limitations of the data types you are going to use because as time goes on servers are going to become more powerful but a 4 byte int is always going to be a 4 byte int.

  • and then you can create a compound key of two bigint fields.  that's a lot of unique values, but i'm sure you've already considered that!

  • Good point.

    My primary key is a composite between an integer (not related to the row number) and a date/time (15 mn intervals), so that does not apply.

    Anyway, I would be very happy to reach 2 billion rows and still running!

     

    Thanks to all

     

  • Hi All,

    Really all your inputs are good and interesting.

    They r very helpful too..

    Thanks to all...

     

     

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