Table partitioning in SQL

What is table partitioning in SQL?

Table partitioning is a way to divide a large table into smaller, more manageable parts without having to create separate tables for each part. Data in a partitioned table is physically stored in groups of rows called partitions and each partition can be accessed and maintained separately. Partitioning is not visible to end-users, a partitioned table behaves like one logical table when queried.

Data in a partitioned table is partitioned based on a single column, the partition column often called the partition key. Only one column can be used as the partition column, but it is possible to use a computed column.

The partition scheme maps the logical partitions to physical filegroups. It is possible to map each partition to its own filegroup or all partitions to one filegroup.