How Many Columns Are Too Many?

Greetings,
I was just wondering if anyone can tell me what the max number of columns
you should put into a table is? I am writing an ASP.NET API that is using a
preexisting SQL Server backend. One of the existing tables is over 320
columns long. The servers are dual processor high end machines and the
traffic will be relatively low right now (about 5 users off and on a few
times every day). The test API I wrote works great with little or no pauses
but I am a little concerned about future traffic requirements if this API
takes off and there are consideraly more users.
Any comments and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
TIA
--
Dennis Pike
Chief Technology Engineer
ErgoSoft Solutionsthis question is a bit difficult to answer.
Generally you want to normalize your database but we need to know what it is
you're doing....
Greg Jackson
PDX, Oregon|||BOL Lists the maximum "Columns per base table" at 1,024.
As for traffic, make sure that you are specifying column names explicitly in
your SELECT statements (no SELECT *) to ensure that you are only pulling
back the columns you actually need. You might even consider using Stored
Proc's if you have some very commonly used queries in your app.
"nomadic1" <nomadic1@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:984D499A-A30A-4E2E-B998-B8C43B562993@.microsoft.com...
> Greetings,
> I was just wondering if anyone can tell me what the max number of columns
> you should put into a table is? I am writing an ASP.NET API that is using
> a
> preexisting SQL Server backend. One of the existing tables is over 320
> columns long. The servers are dual processor high end machines and the
> traffic will be relatively low right now (about 5 users off and on a few
> times every day). The test API I wrote works great with little or no
> pauses
> but I am a little concerned about future traffic requirements if this API
> takes off and there are consideraly more users.
> Any comments and/or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
> TIA
> --
> Dennis Pike
> Chief Technology Engineer
> ErgoSoft Solutions