Max real space in a varbinary(max) in SQL Server

Question

I am saving files (any type ) in a SQL table, using a varbinary(max), I find out that the max usage of this datatype is 8000, but what does the 8000 mean?

Answer 1

I got the "String or binary data would be truncated" error when trying to store 5MB using varbinary(max) on SQL Server 2005. Increasing the autogrowth size for the database solved the problem. Took me a while to figure out, so just thought I'd share :)