Outdated statistics in SQL Server can slow a query even when its code has not changed. On SQL Server 2025 with the legacy estimator, a stale statistic sent one join to 120,043 logical reads, and a targeted update brought it down to 18,220. Auto update helps, but it waits for a threshold, it samples, and it knows nothing about the rows that arrived today.
Your Index Rebuild Maintenance Plan Is Rebuilding Indexes Nobody Uses
Your index rebuild maintenance plan takes four hours every Sunday, fills the log and delays the backup. It may be buying you far less than everybody assumes.
AI Execution Plan Analysis: I Gave It My Plan and Asked What Was Wrong
I handed AI a plan with no warnings and healthy numbers, yet it read five million rows to return seventeen. That is the real test of AI execution plan analysis.
Understanding the AUTO_DROP Option in SQL Server 2022
One such feature is the AUTO_DROP option for statistics. In this blog post, we’ll explore what the AUTO DROP option is, how it works.
SQL SERVER – Understanding Incremental Statistics
Understanding incremental statistics: since SQL Server 2014, statistics can update only the changed subsets instead of a costly full scan on large tables.
SQL SERVER – Performance: OR vs IN
I recently asked on Twitter an exciting question about OR vs IN. While I got lots of good answers, there were an equal amount of wrong answers.







