dbdesign: empty fields vs small tables

[pardede]

I'm struggling with this design issue for my database:
Which is better from the point of view of performance and efficiency:
a large table with lots of empty fields
OR
lots of small tables without empty fields
??

[pardede]

....anybody ???

[JHausmann]

No simple answers to this question.

What are you using the database for? Datawarehouses, for example, have different needs than a transaction based DB.

What kind of load is going to be placed on your DB? Will it be used for data retrieval or input, mostly?

What platform will this be run on and which DBMS system will you be using? SQL Server has varchar fields that use a minimal amount of storage (when the char size is greater than 3 bytes).


How big is the table in question? If the fields use up so much space that it requires more I/O to get the data than it would from multiple tables, your decision is easy.

[This message has been edited by JHausmann (edited 02-04-2000).]