22-25 April 2026 
SQLBits 2023
Should We Defragment Indexes?
You may want to stop or limit defragmenting your indexes when you encounter external fragmentation because it may be causing performance degradation. Join us as we take a deeper look at modern disk architecture and what's actually happening with I/O.
Traditionally, Index fragmentation has lead to database performance problems. To complicate matter even more, there are 2 types of fragmentation (internal and external). Learn why it's not as important now to defragment externally fragmented indexes because of modern disk architecture. In fact, it may even be hurting performance.
Join me as I run through modern disk architecture especially when it comes to VMs/hypervisors. Learn what's actually happening under the hood and why performance can decrease by defragmenting your indexes.
Join me as I run through modern disk architecture especially when it comes to VMs/hypervisors. Learn what's actually happening under the hood and why performance can decrease by defragmenting your indexes.
Speakers
Rob Mandeville's other proposed sessions for 2026
Stop Indexing the Query! Table Tuning Part II - 2026
Rob Mandeville's previous sessions
Stop Indexing the Query
Find out how to index for YOUR workload instead of adding an index for a problem query. I'll share my methodology with you to make you a better optimizer.
Should We Defragment Indexes?
You may want to stop or limit defragmenting your indexes when you encounter external fragmentation because it may be causing performance degradation. Join us as we take a deeper look at modern disk architecture and what's actually happening with I/O.