network packet size Option

The transfer of requests and results between clients and servers are sent in fixed-size chunks (packets). The default packet size set by Microsoft® SQL Server™ is 4096 bytes. If an application does bulk copy operations, or sends or receives large amounts of text or image data, a packet size larger than the default may improve efficiency because it results in fewer network reads and writes. If an application sends and receives small amounts of information, you can set the packet size to 512 bytes, which is sufficient for most data transfers.

Note Do not change the packet size unless you are certain that it will improve performance. For most applications, the default packet size of 4096 bytes is best.

Use the network packet size option to set the packet size (bytes) used across the entire network. The default is 4096. Client applications can override this value. On systems using differing network protocols, set network packet size to the size for the most common protocol used. network packet size improves network performance when network protocols support larger packets.

You can also call OLE DB, ODBC, and DB-Library functions to change the packet size.

network packet size is an advanced option. If you will be using the sp_configure system stored procedure to change the setting, you can change network packet size only when show advanced options is set to 1. The setting takes effect immediately (without a server stop and restart).

To configure packet size

See Also