Microsoft SQL Server supports a variety of data types to store different kinds of information. Here’s a summary of the most commonly used data types:

Numeric Data Types

• INT: Stores integers. Size: 4 bytes. Range: -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
• BIGINT: Stores larger integers. Size: 8 bytes. Range: -9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.
• SMALLINT: Stores smaller integers. Size: 2 bytes. Range: -32,768 to 32,767.
• TINYINT: Stores very small integers. Size: 1 byte. Range: 0 to 255.
• DECIMAL(p,s): Stores fixed-point numbers with precision p and scale s. Size: Depends on precision. Precision: 1 to 38 digits.
• NUMERIC(p,s): Synonym for DECIMAL. Same characteristics.
• FLOAT: Stores floating-point numbers. Size: 4 bytes (float(24)) or 8 bytes (float(53)). Range: Approximate values with varying precision.
• REAL: Stores floating-point numbers with less precision than FLOAT. Size: 4 bytes. Range: Approximate values with lower precision.

Date and Time Data Types

• DATE: Stores dates only. Size: 3 bytes. Range: January 1, 0001 to December 31, 9999.
• TIME: Stores time of day. Size: 5 bytes. Range: 00:00:00.0000000 to 23:59:59.9999999.
• DATETIME: Stores date and time. Size: 8 bytes. Range: January 1, 1753 to December 31, 9999, with 3.33 milliseconds precision.
• DATETIME2: Stores date and time with more precision. Size: 6 to 8 bytes. Range: January 1, 0001 to December 31, 9999, with up to 100 nanoseconds precision.
• SMALLDATETIME: Stores date and time with less precision. Size: 4 bytes. Range: January 1, 1900 to June 6, 2079, with minute precision.

Character and String Data Types

• CHAR(n): Stores fixed-length non-Unicode characters. Size: n bytes. Maximum length: 8,000 bytes.
• VARCHAR(n): Stores variable-length non-Unicode characters. Size: 1 to 8,000 bytes. Maximum length: 2 GB.
• TEXT: Stores large non-Unicode text data. Size: Up to 2 GB. (Note: TEXT is being deprecated in favor of VARCHAR(MAX).)
• NCHAR(n): Stores fixed-length Unicode characters. Size: 2 * n bytes. Maximum length: 4,000 characters.
• NVARCHAR(n): Stores variable-length Unicode characters. Size: 2 bytes per character. Maximum length: 4,000 characters or 2 GB.
• NTEXT: Stores large Unicode text data. Size: Up to 2 GB. (Note: NTEXT is being deprecated in favor of NVARCHAR(MAX).)

Binary Data Types

• BINARY(n): Stores fixed-length binary data. Size: n bytes. Maximum length: 8,000 bytes.
• VARBINARY(n): Stores variable-length binary data. Size: 1 to 8,000 bytes. Maximum length: 2 GB.
• IMAGE: Stores large binary data. Size: Up to 2 GB. (Note: IMAGE is being deprecated in favor of VARBINARY(MAX).)

Other Data Types

• BIT: Stores a bit value. Size: 1 byte. Values: 0, 1, or NULL.
• XML: Stores XML data. Size: 1 to 2 GB.
• UNIQUEIDENTIFIER: Stores a globally unique identifier (GUID). Size: 16 bytes.

Special Data Types

• TABLE: Stores a result set for processing in SQL Server. Used primarily for table-valued parameters and variables.
• CURSOR: Stores a reference to a cursor, which is a database object used to retrieve rows from a result set one at a time.
• SQL_VARIANT: Stores values of various SQL Server-supported data types. Size: Varies.

Each data type has its use cases and constraints, so choosing the appropriate one is crucial for optimizing storage and performance.