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Asked: 2026-05-24T23:50:11+00:00

Another question. Is it better to vertically partition wide table (in my instance I

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Another question.

Is it better to vertically partition wide table (in my instance I am thinking about splitting login details from address, personal etc. details of the user) on a design stage or better leave it be and partition it after having some data and doing profiling?

Answer seems to be obvious but I am concerned that row splitting a table sometime down the line will mean additional work to rewrite the user model + it seems reasonable to split often accessed login details from more static personal details.

Anyone has some experience backed advice on how to proceed :)? Thanks in advance.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Premature optimization is…

    Splitting columns off to a different table has drawbacks:

    • Some operations that required a single query now require two queries or a join
    • It’s not trivial to enforce that every row in each table needs to have a corresponding row in the other. Thus, you might face integrity problems

    On the other hand, it’s dubious at best that doing it will improve performance. Unless you can prove it beforehand (and creating a 10 million records table with random data and running some queries is trivial), I wouldn’t do it. Doug Kress’ suggestions of encapsulation and avoiding SELECT * are the right way.

    The only reason to do it is if your single table design is not normalized and normalization implies breaking up the table.

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