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I'm not sure if want I'm thinking makes sense. I have a SQL Server database table with 30 million rows.

If I do a select A, B, C, D from huge_table --- (about 30 million--- total 4 GB footprint) --- does it take additional time for the SQL Studio Client to actual display all 30 million of these than it would an application to fetch (and process) the exact same query? (with no display requirements).

I mean -- just to fetch two columns --- a datetime and an int -- from this 30 million record table that has 8 columns total --- well it takes 6 minutes to pull up all the records in SQL Studio. That's with no additional joins, calculations, or even every field.

Granted, it probably depends on my local client hardware (decent enough) -- and also the database is in Europe, and I'm in the United States -- though in practice I've found that maybe makes a query 1.5x slower at most.

I suppose I'm used to dealing with smaller datasets (like 2 million).

Is this simply an inherent lag in SQL studio, or does it suggest a reasonable fetch time for a similar hardware spec application?

I'm wondering how to 'speed up' this query, which by design, is a full scan. I can chunk it into smaller pieces, but the total time would be the same.

Should I aggregate or pre-calculate the 30 million? To be honest, that will not save time since with all the necessary dimensions, the 30 million would condense to maybe 25 million plus aggregate processing time - it would take longer.

Indices wouldn't help with full table fetches. Right? You're saying return these fields from the full table.

What's a reasonable time to fetch 30 million records? Select A,B,C from big_table?

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  • A lot of questions here...but you can start by not having SSMS display the results and see what the difference is.
    – LowlyDBA - John M
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:03
  • Testing now with the 'discard results after execution' -- potential use case from your link is to see the actual execution plan while possibly saving memory from displaying the records. My hunch is actually that the display probably doesn't affect fetch time that much but testing now. WAAAAIT ... actually query is twice as fast without display in Studio after initial test.
    – user45867
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:08
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    What on earth are you going to do with 30 million rows in Management Studio? Nobody is going to wait for 30 million rows to render in any application.
    – Aaron Bertrand
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:13
  • It's actually just a one-time feed into cubes for a BI --- but in reality probably about 4-5 million will need to actually be fed into BI cubes daily (being changed). I want to know the speed both for testing purposes (testing the expected time of initial data load into the BI OLAP cubes) and because --- well even with an index and one where statement (or partition) -- the 5 million daily import will just take the 5/30 = 1/6 the time at best.
    – user45867
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:17
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    No, there isn't. Even car engines, which have a rated (and often mechanically governed) top speed, your ability to hit that speed depends on your skill, confidence, road surface, driving conditions, etc. There is no way anyone can tell you how long it should take for you to receive 30 million rows in your environment. I can tell you for certain, though, that using SSMS to render rows is not a reliable way to determine or predict how long it will take for your BI services to consume the same number of rows.
    – Aaron Bertrand
    Feb 6, 2019 at 18:05

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does it take additional time for the SQL Studio Client to actual display all 30 million of these than it would an application to fetch (and process) the exact same query? (with no display requirements)

In short: It depends on what the application is doing with the data (aside from not displaying it), but yes SSMS will take some time to prepare and display the results. If you set SSMS to display client stats (one of the options in the default toolbars, or from the Query menu) you'll see "client processing time" as a separately counted value.

In most circumstances the fetch will be no slower from the database's point of view, because SQL Server's engine is running the same statements and sending the same resulting data over the same network, but there will be a delay on the client at the end as the results are parsed and prepared for display.

There are a few caveats: one being that if the application is not pulling the whole results down at once but instead opening a cursor and pulling rows down individually (or a block at a time) then it may impose more effective load on the server as it may end up holding locks for much longer. In this case the application will get the results slower because of the extra latency from trips to the server to request new rows. It may appear faster to the user though, because the application can start displaying information from the first rows as soon as they are available instead of waiting for the whole resultset to transfer. Getting the data in smaller blocks will increase the amount of bandwidth used if you are using a compressed VPN or tunnel to connect to the server, because the smaller segments may contain less redundancy for the compression algorithm to take advantage off.

Should I aggregate or pre-calculate the 30 million?

We know nothing of your data, or what you are trying to do with it. What calculations? What aggregations? Without much more information we can't help there beyond wild guessing. The best thing would probably be to try it and see.

Indices wouldn't help with full table fetches.

They might if you are requesting the data be presented in a specific order. Or if you are only requesting some of the fields ("some fields from all rows" could become an index scan instead of a table scan and require less data pages to be read).

What's a reasonable time to fetch 30 million records? Select A,B,C from big_table?

There are too many variables for use to even guess an answer to that.

the database is in Europe, and I'm in the United States

For remote databases using some form of link compression will help with large results, though be aware that this will increase latency for small requests.

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I'm not sure anyone can tell you what a reasonable time for your query will be as there are too many variables to consider, some of which you laid out in your post. But at least to answer the question regarding indexes, you might want to look at columnstore indexes, if they are an option for you (not sure what version of SQL Server you are running).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/indexes/columnstore-indexes-overview

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  • Yeah there's too much to learn. Thing is, the table isn't particularly unique. No massive columns or text. Just a relatively narrow table --- 8-10 fields of relatively standard fields (ints and varchar(10s) and a datetime) --- but the 30 million records, select A,B,C still take a while. Interestingly, 'discard results after execution' seems to make the query twice as fast, though I will have to experiment.
    – user45867
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:10
  • Column stores would help yes, thanks --- still the question remains. Say you have a large table and just need to return everything. Every row and column. At that point is the only performance gains to be made with hardware? Would any index or organization help if you just want everything anyway? At that point I would assume only the total table size (MB/ GB) and looking to reduce that would speed things up.
    – user45867
    Feb 6, 2019 at 17:11

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