DBA performance and modeling question

I have a situation where we have exactly same table for different types of objects. The question is should we model it as multiple tables even though the columns are same or should we model it as one large table and have "type" as a column which distinguishes the records. The criteria we are evaluating is the table can become huge with e-commerce sites. We are assuming this table is going to be huge with 20-40million records. If we design it as multiple tables, there are 4 types, which could break down to 5 -10 million records per table if we keep them as separate tables.

In terms of database design I like it as one table but not sure if having many small tables will be any performance benefit vs one big table. Most of the queries will be using index search.

Thanks in advance.
SRK Received on Fri Nov 17 2000 - 10:30:01 CST