Question

SQL Server 2005 data types & its size in BYTES

Asked by: grg-it

This should be an easy one .. in sql server.

I'm listing all possible Sql Server 2005 datatypes. What I am looking for is size of each datatype in BYTES. If I miss any then please add in and make sure you point it with an arrow. Thanx

Sql Server 2005 Data Types:

DataType                           Size

bigint
binary(50)
bit
char(10)
datetime
decimal(18, 0)
float
image
int
money
nchar(10)
ntext
numeric(18, 0)
nvarchar(50)
nvarchar(MAX)
real
smalldatetime
smallint
smallmoney
sql_variant
text
timestamp
tinyint
uniqueidentifier
smallmoney
sql_variant
text
timestamp
tinyint
uniqueidentifier
varbinary(50)
varbinary(MAX)
varchar(50)
varchar(MAX)
xml

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Asked On
2009-01-12 at 10:31:19ID24045017
Tags

SQL Server 2005

Topic

SQL Server 2005

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: BrandonGalderisiPosted on 2009-01-12 at 10:41:05ID: 23355944

The max sizes can be found by looking in master.sys.systypes.

for varchar, the length is the bytes.  so varchar(50) = 50 bytes
for nvarchar, the length*2 is the bytes.  so nvarchar(50) = 100 bytes

I'm not sure on the size of text and ntext but they really shouldn't be used.

Here's a MS article on it.  I've filled in some below.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms172424(SQL.90).aspx

bigint                           8
binary(50)                    50
bit                                1
char(10)                        10
datetime                        8
decimal(18, 0)                 18
float                                8
image
int                                  4
money                           8
nchar(10)                      20
ntext
numeric(18, 0)               18
nvarchar(50)                   100
nvarchar(MAX)                up to 2gb
real                                4
smalldatetime                4
smallint                           2
smallmoney                    4
sql_variant                     8000
text                                 
timestamp                       8
tinyint                             1
uniqueidentifier              16
smallmoney                      still 4
sql_variant                      still 8000
text              
timestamp                        ....
tinyint
uniqueidentifier              .....
varbinary(50)                   50
varbinary(MAX)                   up to 2gb
varchar(50)                        50
varchar(MAX)                       up to 2gb
xml                                     up to 2gb

                                              
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by: grg-itPosted on 2009-01-12 at 10:48:54ID: 23356013

Sorry I forgot to add one more question.. Consider this as continuation to the above question.

Also I would like to know --> For example if I define Table A with only two columns Column A & Column B whose datatype is char(8000), char(8000) respectively and keeping in mind that row size/page size cannot exceed 8192 bytes(with header), 8060 without header. what will actually get stored on my 8 KB page. How will it treat column A and column B? What would be the size of my single row in Table A?

 

by: angelIIIPosted on 2009-01-12 at 10:52:03ID: 23356039

AFAIK, you will not be able to create a row in such a table, as it would always be > 8K row size,

if you had said VARCHAR(8000) instead of CHAR(8000), the answer is differently, as it will only store the real amount of data, while CHAR() requires the full size (right-padding with spaces)

 

by: grg-itPosted on 2009-01-12 at 11:14:51ID: 23356252

BrandonGalderisi:

I was looking in master.sys.systypes table and it shows that nvarchar max limit is 8000 but you said its 2 GB. Am I missing something here? Where did you see 2 GB? Please point me to that link if you have one.

 

by: BrandonGalderisiPosted on 2009-01-12 at 11:19:44ID: 23356296

nvarchar(4000) is not the same type as nvarchar(max)

The two max types (nvarchar and varchar) are different than their non-max types.  In particular, if you do a sp_help on a table that contains both max and regular.  You will see that the max has -1 as the size.  

 

by: k_murli_krishnaPosted on 2009-01-12 at 11:35:17ID: 23356443

Attached is my list. See if it adds/corrects some bytes/info.

 

by: grg-itPosted on 2009-01-12 at 11:36:44ID: 23356457

And why is ntext lengh showing as 16. Is this a pointer that is getting stored? I believe ntext is meant to hold much bigger data than just 16 bytes.. Right?

 

by: BrandonGalderisiPosted on 2009-01-12 at 11:50:11ID: 23356582

Correct.  And I don't know what the actual maximum length is so I omitted it.

 

by: grg-itPosted on 2009-01-12 at 12:02:45ID: 23356720

Murli

For some datatypes, you are adding 2 more bytes to it? Why? For instance

Binary(50)        52
nchar(10)         22
nvarchar(50)  102
varchar(50)      52

Why is this not documented in MSDN books or BOL? This additional two bytes you have in here will kill me if I was to calculate size of single row of a table or size of table itself. I mean that is if this is not right. Hope you know what I mean.

 

by: BrandonGalderisiPosted on 2009-01-12 at 12:10:00ID: 23356795

Run this... the length is the size in bytes

create table #a
     (binary50      binary(50)
     ,varbinary50   varbinary(50)
     ,binary16      binary(16)
     ,smalldt       smalldatetime
     ,datet         datetime
     ,nvarcharmax   nvarchar(max)
     ,varcharmax    varchar(max)
     ,ntxt          ntext
     ,txt           text
     ,integr        int
     ,smallnt       smallint
     ,tinynt        tinyint
     ,bt            bit
     )
exec tempdb.dbo.sp_help '#a'
drop table #a

                                              
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by: grg-itPosted on 2009-01-12 at 12:38:56ID: 23357123

I run above DDL script and I don't see any additional 2 bytes getting appended to any data types. So I assume neither should I append additional 2 bytes when calculating row size. Thanx

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