Data types in SQL Server : A Quick Read
A data type is an attribute that specifies the type of data that the object can hold for example integer data, character data, date and time data, binary strings, and so on. SQL Server supplies a set of system data types that define all the types of data that can be used with SQL Server plus you can define your own data types in Transact-SQL or the Microsoft .NET Framework. Data types in SQL Server are organized into the following categories: 1 - Exact numerics bigint numeric bit smallint decimal smallmoney int tinyint money 2 - Approximate numerics float real 3 - Character strings char varchar text 4- Unicode character strings nchar nvarchar ntext 5 - Binary strings binary varbinary image 6 - Date and time date datetimeoffset datetime2 smalldatetime datetime time 7 - Other data types cursor timestamp hierarchyid uniqueidentifier sql_variant xml table