SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1

Solution: Partition and Normalize

There are better ways to improve performance if a table gets too large, instead of splitting the table manually. These include horizontal partitioning, vertical partitioning, and using dependent tables.

Using Horizontal Partitioning

You can gain the benefits of splitting a large table without the drawbacks by using a feature that is called either horizontal partitioning or sharding. You define a logical table with some rule for separating rows into individual partitions, and the database manages the rest. Physically, the table is split, but you can still execute SQL statements against the table as though it were whole.

You have flexibility in that you can define the way each individual table splits its rows ...