hhmmm....interesting that the optimizer treats them differently, I will have to get a closer look at that, thanks for the info.

D

First off, I would like to say good job, I don't think most of us appreciate the hard word that goes into these articles.

The only item I will nit-pick is...

If you don't see the DB called AdventureWorks2008R2 then it is because you don't have FILESTREAM installed/running. Go here and follow the instructions.

http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/59211

(can you tell I did this already...