Select n random rows from SQL Server table

Question

I\'ve got a SQL Server table with about 50,000 rows in it. I want to select about 5,000 of those rows at random. I\'ve thought of a complicated way, creating a temp table wi

Answer 1

If you (unlike the OP) need a specific number of records (which makes the CHECKSUM approach difficult) and desire a more random sample than TABLESAMPLE provides by itself, and also want better speed than CHECKSUM, you may make do with a merger of the TABLESAMPLE and NEWID() methods, like this:

DECLARE @sampleCount int = 50
SET STATISTICS TIME ON

SELECT TOP (@sampleCount) * 
FROM [yourtable] TABLESAMPLE(10 PERCENT)
ORDER BY NEWID()

SET STATISTICS TIME OFF

In my case this is the most straightforward compromise between randomness (it's not really, I know) and speed. Vary the TABLESAMPLE percentage (or rows) as appropriate - the higher the percentage, the more random the sample, but expect a linear drop off in speed. (Note that TABLESAMPLE will not accept a variable)