[ACCEPTED]-Is "SELECT COUNT(column)" faster/slower than "SELECT COUNT(*)"?-count

Accepted answer

Score: 16

I tried a few SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable vs. SELECT COUNT(SomeColumn) FROM MyTable with various sizes of 17 tables, and where the SomeColumn once is a clustering 16 key column, once it's in a non-clustered 15 index, and once it's in no index at all.

In 14 all cases, with all sizes of tables (from 13 300'000 rows to 170 million rows), I never 12 see any difference in terms of either speed nor execution 11 plan - in all cases, the COUNT is handled by 10 doing a clustered index scan --> i.e. scanning 9 the whole table, basically. If there is 8 a non-clustered index involved, then the 7 scan is on that index - even when doing 6 a SELECT COUNT(*)!

There doesn't seem to be any difference 5 in terms of speed or approach how those 4 things are counted - to count them all, SQL 3 Server just needs to scan the whole table 2 - period.

Tests were done on SQL Server 1 2008 R2 Developer Edition

Source: stackoverflow.com

[ACCEPTED]-Is "SELECT COUNT(column)" faster/slower than "SELECT COUNT(*)"?-count

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