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What Are Data Pages and Index Pages in SQL Server?

Senior MS SQL
Quick Answer SQL Server stores data in 8KB pages. Data pages hold actual table rows. Index pages hold B-tree index entries at each level รขโ‚ฌโ€ leaf pages point to actual data rows (or contain them for clustered indexes). Each page belongs to one object and is managed by the buffer pool for caching.

Answer

SQL Server stores all data in 8 KB pages.

  • Data pages store full table rows.
  • Index pages store B-tree navigation structures and pointers.

Understanding pages explains index fragmentation, logical reads, and physical I/O behavior.

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