Is it better to use FREETEXT or CONTAINS Full Text Searches when searching by single characters

Question

I am trying to come up with the most efficient way to search for records in a collection of about 130,000 total records. The long, short of it is we have about 130,000 Active Directory records. I am building a site that looks up users in AD. I would like to implement TypeAhead functionality on a Search box. I could query AD directly in code, but am thinking about dumping the data into SQL Server and querying that instead. TypeAhead does a search as you type characters in the textbox. Is it efficient to search a table of 130,000 records by single characters? I am trying to determine if the searching should be done by the SQL Server engine or on the site? I am thinking SQL Server. If true, is it better to use FREETEXT or CONTAINS full text searches?

Curious what the community thinks about this? Or am I way off?

Answer 1

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. FREETEXT evaluates not only on the string, but also the meaning. Whereas CONTAINS is used for precise or fuzzy searching on a string.

Answer 2

I'd start with querying AD directly. If the feature was heavily used, slow, or placing a strain on AD servers, I'd consider caching the entire data set in memory. Its a pretty small dataset, does it warrant the effort of setting up a database and the necessary ETL to load regularly?