SQL Index Creation Using DROP EXISTING= ON

When you are making changes to an existing Non-Clustered index SQL Server provides a wide variety of options. One of the more frequently used methods is DROP EXISTING; in this post you will learn all about that option. This option automatically drops an existing index after recreating it, without the index being explicitly dropped. Let us take a moment understand the behavior of this choice. DROP EXSITING=ON which is my preferred method, will DROP the current index only after it finishes creating and building the index with the new definition. The pitfall is that if the index does not exist, you… Continue Reading