Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Using Partitions

Partitioning in SQL Server 2012 allows for a single table or index to be aligned to more than one filegroup. This capability was introduced in SQL Server 2005. Prior to SQL Server 2005, you could use filegroups to isolate a table or an index to a single filegroup, but the table or index could not be spread across multiple filegroups or data files. The ability to spread a table or an index across multiple filegroups is particularly useful for large tables. You can partition a table across multiple filegroups and have data files live on separate disk drives to improve performance. Table partitioning is discussed in more detail in Chapter 20, “Creating and Managing Tables.”