[dba-SQLServer] Quick and dirty on varchar

John W. Colby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Aug 20 09:15:44 CDT 2004


When I imported this mailing list into SQL Server every field came in as
varchar 255.  What does this mean in terms of actual disk space used?  Does
SQL Server "reserve" 255 bytes for that field or does it dynamically assign
just enough space to hold the actual contents.  

Many if not most of the fields are a Y or N (actual character in the text
coming in).  

Would it benefit me to change the data type for these columns in terms of
the actual data storage size?  If I did that would the DTS doing the import
from the comma delimited field still function correctly (I assume yes to
that since the data still fits).

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John W.
Colby
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:49 PM
To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: [dba-SQLServer] External hard disk


I purchased a "mobile disk" external hard disk enclosure from CompUSA to put
one of the 200gb hard disks in so I could take the db with me and work off
my laptop.  I found a diag program out there somewhere that tested the
transfer speed.  For USB 2.0 the transfer speed was ~25 mbyte / sec.  For
fire wire (4 pin) it was only 17.5 mbyte / sec.  This with the Maxtor 200g
8mb cache.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Michael
Maddison
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 7:44 PM
To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [dba-SQLServer] Block size for SQL Server disk


Most of the recommendations for sector size say bigger is better.  I have a
ppt presentation from UNISYS that looks at all the options for setting up a
SQL server box.  IIRC they recommend 64K because it allows the fastest file
growth.

While SQL uses 8k page sizes I'm not sure that relates directly to sector
size!

If anyone wants a copy of the ppt lemme know.

cheers

Michael M


On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:01:05 -0400, John W. Colby
<jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
> I have purchased new disks to build this new SQL Server database on. I 
> believe I have read that SQL Server uses 8k block sizes internally.

> Is it useful to format the hard disk to 8K sectors so that the SQL 
> blocks map to sectors directly?  Does anyone know if this helps or 
> hinders?

Although Sql Server uses 8k block sizes internally I've never heard on any
list that it's a good idea to format your hdd that way... so I'd say nope.

-- 
-Francisco
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