Index vs. partitioning for performance

Hi,

Suppose:

• you have a table that has only a few colums and one of them, an integer column, is used as an index;
• rows in this table are only ever selected using the index field;
• no rows are ever deleted from the table; only inserts and updates are allowed;
• this table can grow to one billion rows.

Can query (or insert) performance for this table be improved by partitioning the table and/or its index? If partitioning were done, the only sensible partitioning scheme for this data would be hash-partitioning on the indexed column.

I'm guessing the answer is no. I'm also guessing that rebuilding the index is never an issue in this scenario. Am I right or am I right?

Thanks,

Adam Received on Thu Apr 20 2006 - 16:23:46 CDT