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Why do large table scans cause severe slowdowns?

Expert MS SQL
Quick Answer Large table scans read every page in the table รขโ‚ฌโ€ for a 100GB table, that's potentially GBs of I/O. This pushes useful pages out of the buffer pool, increases disk read time, and spikes CPU. In a shared server, one scan-heavy query can degrade performance for all other sessions simultaneously.

Answer

Large scans:

  • Generate heavy I/O
  • Evict useful pages from buffer pool
  • Increase CPU usage
  • Slow concurrent users

One bad scan can impact dozens of users in a production environment.

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SugharaIQ Editorial Team Verified Answer

This answer has been peer-reviewed by industry experts holding senior engineering roles to ensure technical accuracy and relevance for modern interview standards.

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