Most traditional HPLC is performed with the stationary phase attached to the outside of small spherical silica particles (very small beads). These particles come in a variety of sizes with 5 µm beads being the most common. Smaller particles generally provide more surface area and better separations, but the pressure required for optimum linear velocity increases by the inverse of the particle diameter squared.
According to the equations of the column velocity, efficiency and backpressure, reducing the particle diameter by half and keeping the size of the column the same, will double the column velocity and efficiency; but four times increase the backpressure. And the small particles HPLC also can decrease the width broadening. Larger particles are used in preparative HPLC (column diameters 5 cm up to >30 cm) and for non-HPLC applications such as solid-phase extraction.