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I wonder about the difference between different data types in SQL Server to store strings.
For example ntext, nvarchar(X), varchar, nvarchar(max) etc.
What could be the advices in terms of flexibility, resource usage and performance?
All the string types the
Nare unicode – 2 bytes for each characters, will store things like Cyrillic, Asian, Arabic, Hebrew alphabets – while those without the leadingNare not unicode (only properly store Western European / ASCII characters)TEXTandNTEXTare deprecated – don’t use those anymore – use(N)VARCHAR(MAX)instead – see the relevant MSDN documentation on that topic for detailsNVARCHAR(X)is a “normal” string, max. of 8000 bytes of data (4000 Unicode or 8000 non-Unicode characters) – stored in the regular page in SQL ServerNVARCHAR(MAX)is a special type, up to 2 GB of storage (1 billion Unicode characters) – but it requires special handling in storage, more effort needed, performs a bit slower than regular strings; use only when absolutely needed