optimal sizes of varchar fields | SQL Server Performance Forums

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optimal sizes of varchar fields

I’ve heard that it is best to keep the lengths of varchar fields at numbers that are a power of 2 (64,128,256 etc). Is this true? Does this help performance in any way?
Read this recent thread:<br /<a target="_blank" href=http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=de&lr=&frame=right&th=ec4b1a2ba92854d5&seekm=uRtAEwXMFHA.1476%40TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl#link1>http://groups.google.de/groups?hl=de&lr=&frame=right&th=ec4b1a2ba92854d5&seekm=uRtAEwXMFHA.1476%40TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl#link1</a><br /><br />Should give some interesting insight. [<img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-1.gif’ alt=’:)‘ />]<br /><br />–<br />Frank Kalis<br />SQL Server MVP<br /<a target="_blank" href=http://www.insidesql.de>http://www.insidesql.de</a><br />
The link seems broken… <img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-6.gif’ alt=’:(‘ />
Oops.http://snipurl.com/f2zc should work —
Frank Kalis
SQL Server MVP
http://www.insidesql.de

That was quick [<img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-1.gif’ alt=’:)‘ />]<br />Works now.
Good, but you must scroll down a bit. I’m learning how to use snipurl right now [<img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-6.gif’ alt=’:(‘ />]<br /><br />–<br />Frank Kalis<br />SQL Server MVP<br /<a target="_blank" href=http://www.insidesql.de>http://www.insidesql.de</a><br />
Yes I did read most of it.<br /><br />It might theoretically make a difference for the Query Optimizer as I understood.<br />But then again this should not be a concern.<br />It seldom makes sense to scan through large varchar columns anyway.<br /><br />Yeah, the 2nd url looked much nicer <img src=’/community/emoticons/emotion-1.gif’ alt=’:)‘ />
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