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We work with tables with a lot of records. Anyone knows if is better to make a Count(*) or a Top 1 to know if a specific record exists or a group of records match some conditions. Also this type of sentence lock the table or I need to specify no lock the table.

David Escudero
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  • If you don't actually need the count, and there is no sorting involved, a TOP 1 of just the row id should be fastest. A count can take time. – Thilo Jun 24 '14 at 09:10

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If you don't care about the possibility of dirty reads you can try this 

   SELECT TOP(1)
       FROM YourTable WITH (NOLOCK)
    WHERE ..... (your conditions here)
g2server
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