When does page split occurs ?

Q

What is fillfactor ?

✍: Guest

A

The 'fill factor' option specifies how full SQL Server will make each index page. When there is no free space to insert new row on the index page, SQL Server will create new index page and transfer some rows from the previous page to the new one. This operation is called page splits. You can reduce the number of page splits by setting the appropriate fill factor option to reserve free space on each index page. The fill factor is a value from 1 through 100 that specifies the percentage of the index page to be left empty. The default value for fill factor is 0. It is treated similarly to a fill factor value of 100, the difference in that SQL Server leaves some space within the upper level of the index tree for FILLFACTOR = 0. The fill factor percentage is used only at the time when the index is created. If the table contains read-only data (or data that very rarely changed), you canset the 'fill factor' option to 100. When the table's data is modified very often, you can decrease the fill factor to 70% or whatever you think is best.

2007-10-25, 5160👍, 0💬