Is it better to create an index before filling a table with data, or after the data is in place?

Question

I have a table of about 100M rows that I am going to copy to alter, adding an index. I\'m not so concerned with the time it takes to create the new table, but will the crea

Answer 1

Indexes created after are much faster in most cases. Case in point: 20 million rows with full text on varchar(255) - (Business Name) Index in place whilst importing rows - a match against taking up to 20 seconds in worst cases. Drop index and re-create - match against taking less than 1 second every time