Question

Is there a maximum?
Will SQL Server start throwing SqlExceptions when maximum is reached?
How do you solve it? (archiving?)

From the SQL Server resources I can see that the maximum is 2,147,483,647. I’m far from that, but I was just curious.

Answer 1

you can see the error using this small example

use tempdb;

if OBJECT_ID('dbo.test', 'U') is not null drop table dbo.test

create table test
( id int identity not null,
  dummy int not null )
go

SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.test ON

insert into test(id, dummy) values(2147483647, 1)

SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.test OFF

insert into test(dummy) values(1)

the error:

(1 row(s) affected)
Msg 8115, Level 16, State 1, Line 8
Arithmetic overflow error converting IDENTITY to data type int.
Arithmetic overflow occurred.