Removing duplicate indexes

SQL Server has a horrible habit of letting bad habits move forward (for the sake of backward compatibility [e.g. autoshrink]). And, I do understand *some* of the reasons for allowing some of these “features/options” to move forward. However, there are a few that frustrate me and I’ve talked about this one quite often. SQL Server [...]

How can you tell if an index is REALLY a duplicate?

There’s a lot of confusion around duplicate indexes and I think a lot of it has to do with how sp_helpindex (or even SSMS) display what’s in an index. What’s actually in the index – and how it’s structured – are not always what they seem. This was the original motivation behind my rewrite of [...]

USE THIS: sp_helpindex rewrites

I realize that I've created quite a few posts (and rewrites) around sp_helpindex and recently I've been recommending that most folks use my latest version (jokingly, this is sp_helpindex9) but it's not so obvious where to get it and/or what to do to install it. To make it easier… I'm just going to do a [...]

How much does that key cost? (plus sp_helpindex9)

OK, two in two days? What's wrong with me (is what Paul said) after he said – who are you and where is my wife? But, this one is a short one, specifically a follow-on to my prior post about "Disk space is cheap…" I did a bit of simple math on the internal overhead and [...]

A new and improved sp_helpindex (jokingly sp_helpindex8)

NOTE: I've released other versions of sp_helpindex since this post. Check out the category: sp_helpindex rewrites for all of the options! OK, I first blogged about re-writing sp_helpindex here as sp_helpindex2 (April 2008). Shortly thereafter (Aug 2008), a reader found a bug and when I went digging, so did I (a couple of others). I did [...]

Updates (fixes) to sp_helpindex2

NOTE: I've released other versions of sp_helpindex since this post. Check out the category: sp_helpindex rewrites for all of the options! I first posted an update to sp_helpindex here. My version of sp_helpindex was solely to expand what sp_helpindex showed and adds 1 or 2 things based on version: for SQL2005+ it adds included columns and [...]

sp_helpindex2 to show included columns (2005+) and filtered indexes (2008) which are not shown by sp_helpindex

IMPORTANT NOTE: Use the updated version of sp_helpindex2… see this post: Updates (fixes) to sp_helpindex2.  OK – so this has been frustrating me for many months… when you create indexes with included columns (which was a new feature of SQL Server 2005), they're not shown by sp_helpindex or by DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS. I understand this not [...]