title: fill factor of SQL Server 2008
body: <p>I am new to SQL Server 2008 fill factor, as mentioned here in SQL Server 2008 BOL,</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177459.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177459.aspx</a></p>
  
  <p>My 2 confusions,</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Whether fill factor applies to index page? Or applies to both index and data page? At the beginning, seems fill factor applies only to index page -- "The fill-factor option is provided for fine-tuning index data storage and performance", but at the end it is mentioned -- "If existing rows will be updated with data that lengthens the size of the rows, use a fill factor of less than 100. The extra bytes on each page will help to minimize page splits caused by extra length in the rows.". Any comments?</p></li>
  <li><p>Whether fill factor takes effect to only rebuild index/create index operation (only rebuild/create index will utilize free space reserved by fill factor), or applies to any insert/update operation (any insert/update operation will utilize free space reserved by fill factor)?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>thanks in advance,
  George</p>