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sql-servermd5
Nic Strong
Nic Strong

Reputation: 6592

Storing MD5 Hash in SQL Server

In SQL Server would a varbinary(16) be the most efficient way of storing an MD5 hash? Won't be doing anything with it except returning it in a linq query.

Upvotes: 13

Views: 10889

Answers (2)

Dan
Dan

Reputation: 614

Null values change things:

A null varbinary(16) is 2 bytes.
A null binary(16) is 16 bytes.
16 bytes stored in varbinary(16) takes 18 bytes.
16 bytes in binary(16) takes 16 bytes.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/3731195

Upvotes: 2

Dale Ragan
Dale Ragan

Reputation: 18270

Based on the documentation on MSDN and my experience, binary is better, since the md5 hash does not vary in size.

The size for a binary data type is n bytes, so the size of the data. The size of a varbinary data type is n bytes + 2 bytes on top of the size of the data.

Upvotes: 16

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