Why & When should I use SPARSE COLUMN? (SQL SERVER 2008)

• Storing a null in a sparse column takes up no space at all.

• To any external application the column will behave the same

• Sparse columns work really well with filtered indexes as you will only want to create an index to deal with the non-empty attributes in the column.

• You can create a column set over the sparse columns that returns an xml clip of all of the non-null data from columns covered by the set. The column set behaves like a column itself. Note: you can only have one column set per table.

• Change Data Capture and Transactional replication both work, but not the column sets feature.

Downsides

• If a sparse column has data in it it will take 4 more bytes than a normal column e.g. even a bit (0.125 bytes normally) is 4.125 bytes and unique identifier rises form 16 bytes to 20 bytes.

• Not all data type can be sparse: text, ntext, image, timestamp, user-defined data type, geometry, or geography or varbinray (max) with the FILESTREAM attribute cannot be sparse. (Changed17/5/2009 thanks Alex for spotting the typo)

• computed columns can't be sparse (although sparse columns can take part in a calculation in another computed column)

• You can't apply rules or have default values.

• Sparse columns cannot form part of a clustered index. If you need to do that use a computed column based on the sparse column and create the clustered index on that (which sort of defeats the object).

• Merge replication doesn't work.

• Data compression doesn't work.

• Access (read and write) to sparse columns is more expensive, but I haven't been able to find any exact figures on this.

Reference

A sparse column doesn't use 4x the amount of space to store a value, it uses a (fixed) 4 extra bytes per non-null value. (As you've already stated, a NULL takes 0 space.)

• So a non-null value stored in a bit column would be 1 bit + 4 bytes = 4.125 bytes. But if 99% of these are NULL, it is still a net savings.

• A non-null value stored in a GUID (UniqueIdentifier) column is 16 bytes + 4 bytes = 20 bytes. So if only 50% of these are NULL, that's still a net savings.

So the "expected savings" depends strongly on what kind of column we're talking about, and your estimate of what ratio will be null vs non-null. Variable width columns (varchars) are probably a little more difficult to predict accurately.

This Books Online Page has a table showing what percentage of different data types would need to be null for you to end up with a benefit.

So when should you use a Sparse Column? When you expect a significant percentage of the rows to have a NULL value. Some examples that come to mind:

• A "Order Return Date" column in an order table. You would hope that a very small percent of sales would result in returned products.
• A "4th Address" line in an Address table. Most mailing addresses, even if you need a Department name and a "Care Of" probably don't need 4 separate lines.
• A "Suffix" column in a customer table. A fairly low percent of people have a "Jr." or "III" or "Esquire" after their name.

You're reading it wrong - it never takes 4x the space.

Specifically, it says 4* (4 bytes, see footnote), not 4x (multiply by 4). The only case where it's exactly 4x the space is a char(4), which would see savings if the NULLs exist more than 64% of the time.

"*The length is equal to the average of the data that is contained in the type, plus 2 or 4 bytes."

| datetime NULL      | datetime SPARSE NULL | datetime SPARSE NULL |
|--------------------|----------------------|----------------------|
| 20171213 (8 bytes) | 20171213 (12 bytes)  | 20171213 (12 bytes)  |
| NULL     (8 bytes) | 20171213 (12 bytes)  | 20171213 (12 bytes)  |
| 20171213 (8 bytes) | NULL      (0 bytes)  | NULL      (0 bytes)  |
| NULL     (8 bytes) | NULL      (0 bytes)  | NULL      (0 bytes)  |

You lose 4 bytes not just once per row; but for every cell in the row that is not null.