title: How should I store short text strings into a SQL Server database?
body: <p>varchar(255), varchar(256), nvarchar(255), nvarchar(256), nvarchar(max), etc?</p>
  
  <p>256 seems like a nice, round, space-efficient number.  But I've seen 255 used a lot.  Why?</p>
  
  <p>What's the difference between varchar and nvarchar?</p>