title: One big table or multiple smaller ones?
body: <p>I was wondering which approach is better when making a database (ie for a messaging app). Lets say that there is a table with all the messages. is it better to either:  </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Have one large table for all the messages or</li>
  <li>Have one table for the most recently sent messages and another for all messages sent over, for example, 1 month ago.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>My thinking with this is that it is better to go with the second option, as it will be faster to search through a smaller database for the queries that are going to be the most common instead of going through a huge table with all the messages ever sent. I've tried to look up best practices for large databases but I have not found anything that answers this question. </p>