Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

Understanding Table Structures

A table is logically defined as a set of columns with certain properties, such as the data type, nullability, constraints, and so on. Information about data types, column properties, constraints, and other information related to defining and creating tables can be found in Chapters 20, “Creating and Managing Tables,” and 23, “Creating and Managing Views.”

Internally, a table is contained in one or more partitions. A partition is a user-defined unit of data organization. By default, a table has at least one partition that contains all the table pages. This partition resides in a single filegroup, as described earlier. When a table has multiple partitions, the data is partitioned horizontally so that groups of rows ...