Press "Enter" to skip to content

Implicit Conversion (Sometimes) Harms Performance

Grant Fritchey looks at implicit conversion and the havoc it can wreak:

Letting SQL Server change data types automatically can seriously impact performance in a negative way. Because a calculation has to be run on each column, you can’t get an index seek. Instead, you’re forced to use a scan. I can demonstrate this pretty simply. Here’s a script that sets up a test table with three columns and three indexes and tosses a couple of rows in:

You might get lucky and have the database engine realize that it doesn’t need to give you a horrible execution plan, but it’s sound advice to ensure that data types match on joins and filters.