title: SQL Server partitioning vs indexes
body: <p>I have a table with over 180 million rows.</p>
  
  <p>I have been considering table partitions to reduce the scans (in addition to indexes). One of the columns I've considered to partition by is <code>STATE</code>. As this is not a transaction table, I do not have a date column that I desire to partition by. We do not do many selects based on the date.</p>
  
  <p>My question is has anyone ever split their tables on a string-value column instead of a date? And if so, what are the performance considerations for doing so?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>