Regarding CHAR/VARCHAR: At least in MySQL VARCHAR only has one byte of padding, while CHAR is a huge waste of space if you don't use mostly full-length strings.

Regarding CHAR/VARCHAR: At least in MySQL VARCHAR only has one byte of padding, while CHAR is a huge waste of space if you don't use mostly full-length strings. Edit: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/char.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/char.html