Books Online has this to say about page splits: When a new row is added to a full index page, the Database Engine moves approximately half the rows to a new page to make room for the new row.  This reorganization is known as a page split.  A page split makes room for new records, but can take time to perform and is a resource ...

You probably already know that it’s important to be aware of data types when writing queries, and that implicit conversions between types can lead to poor query performance.  Some people have gone so far as to write scripts to search the plan cache for CONVERT_IMPLICIT elements, and others routinely inspect plans for that type of thing when ...