SQL Server row date last modified

As the others are hinting at, your colleague must be talking gibberish, or referring to something else. The on-disk structure for a record, or page for that sake, does not contain any references to the time of the last update. While you can find info regarding the last update at the object level, no such info is available at the record/row level.

From Pinal Dave, there is a DMV that you can use to get this information. Your colleague might be referring to the TIMESTAMP for a modified row, but as far as I know it only maintains that if you ask it to by explicitly adding a column of that type.

SELECT OBJECT_NAME(OBJECT_ID) AS DatabaseName, last_user_update,*
FROM sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats
WHERE database_id = DB_ID( 'AdventureWorks')
AND OBJECT_ID=OBJECT_ID('test');

There is no hidden column, maintained on a per-row basis, that contains the date/time of the last modification. Nor is there a column containing the identity of the user who performed such a change, nor is there a column that identifies what the last change performed was (insert or update).

If you want any of these features, you have to implement them. For some users, every last bit of overhead could matter to them, so having hidden features (with hidden costs) would not be acceptable.