Full-text index in partitioned table

Question

I have a table with just over a million records with a full-text index.

This table has been split in two in the past, and the data older than a certain date is moved to another table with the exact same structure in a separate database at the end of every year. This second table has approximately 3+ million records.

I can only guess why this has been done, but now I've been asked to merge this two tables back into a single one, and partition it. I'm running SQL Server 2005.

Will the full-text search work in partitioned tables?

Are there any recommendations regarding this situation, or anything I should pay attention to?

Answer 1

I did some more research and found a couple of useful articles with best practices regarding table partitioning and full-text searching on large tables. As I haven't received any answers to this question, I thought I'd post what I've found here for future reference.

I'm still reading those, but for what I've already read, I've found both of them useful and relevant to this particular situation:

SQL Server 2005 Full-Text Queries on Large Catalogs: Lessons Learned:

The observations in this paper are based on tests run in the SQL Server Customer Lab for a customer who needed to scale up full-text search to a much greater potential volume. The paper describes the customer scenario, provides an overview of SQL Server 2005 full-text concepts that bear on the results, and offers lessons learned and recommendations for using full-text queries on large catalogs.

Partitioned Tables and Indexes in SQL Server 2005

Summary: Table-based partitioning features in SQL Server 2005 provide flexibility and performance to simplify the creation and maintenance of partitioned tables. Trace the progression of capabilities from logically and manually partitioning tables to the latest partitioning features, and find out why, when, and how to design, implement, and maintain partitioned tables using SQL Server 2005. (41 printed pages)