I've been told on two occasions that the absence of the MEDIUMINT datatype is a serious shortcoming of SQL Server. If you're not familiar with MEDIUMINT, it's an integer type available in MySQL that consumes 3 Bytes and is capable of storing values ranging from -8,388,608 to 8,388,607 (signed) or from 0 to 15,777,215 …

This post is part of T-SQL Tuesday #52, which is being hosted this month by Michael J. Swart (@MJSwart). Michael is asking us to argue against a popular opinion, and I'm more than happy to do so, as this is a belief that I've kept to myself for quite a while. SQL Server's row compression feature can be an amazing tool. …

When I'm presenting on SQL Server data compression, I frequently get asked if data compression and backup compression can be used together. I keep meaning to put together a blog post with a demo so I have something to direct people towards for further reading. So here we are – let's give it the old college try and find …

"Statistics means never having to say you're certain" is a well-known quote that would often come up in my AP Statistics class back in high school. The same can be implied for estimation, and while estimates need not be perfect, they should at least be logical. While estimating the effects of compressing data …