title: Efficiently checking if more than one row exists in a recordset
body: <p>I'm using SQL Server 2008 R2, and I'm trying to find an efficient way to test if more than 1 row exists in a table matching a condition.</p>
  
  <p>The naive way to do it is a COUNT:</p>
  
  <pre><code>IF  (   SELECT  COUNT(*)
          FROM    Table
          WHERE   Column  = &lt;something&gt;
      )   &gt; 1 BEGIN
      ...
  END
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this requires actually computing a COUNT, which is wasteful.  I just want to test for more than 1.</p>
  
  <p>The only thing I've come up with is a COUNT on a TOP 2:</p>
  
  <pre><code>IF  (   SELECT  COUNT(*)
          FROM    (   SELECT  TOP 2   0   x
                      FROM    Table
                      WHERE   Column  = &lt;something&gt;
                  )   x
      )   &gt; 1 BEGIN
      ...
  END
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is clunky and requires commenting to document.  Is there a more terse way?</p>