How do you create a wide table in SQL Server 2008? and what are its limitations on use?

sql tsql sql-server-2008 ddl
MikeJ picture MikeJ · May 28, 2009 · Viewed 20.6k times · Source

I was reading the Maximum Capacity Specifications for SQL Server and I came across the designation of a wide table. It's different from a standard table in that is can have as many as 30,000 columns as opposed to a normal (narrow) table that is limited to the more familiar 1024 columns. I googled for wide table, but nothing seem to come up relevant. Does this new table type have a more formal name???

So why do we have two different types of tables, how do you create this special table and what are the limitations of using this table that can seemingly hold more data ? anhyone know ?

Answer

Scott Ivey picture Scott Ivey · May 28, 2009

A wide table is a table that uses column sets and sparse columns. It still follows the same width restrictions per row (8019 bytes) - so you'd typically only use it when your columns are mostly all nulls.

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