Variable Types for SQL Server Databases

Selecting appropriate data types is one of the most important considerations when designing a SQL Server database. Choices you make in the database design phase may have a significant impact on the efficiency, performance and storage requirements of your database down the road.

Read our overview of SQL Server data type categories or skip directly to one of the data type description pages:

• Exact numeric data types
• Approximate numeric data types
• Date and time data types
• Character string data types
• Binary data types
• Other data types