Notes about extents - SQL Server 2008

SQL Server has two types of extents:

1. Uniform extents are owned by a single object; all eight pages in the extent can only be used by the owning object.
2. Mixed extents are shared by up to eight objects. Each of the eight pages in the extent can be owned by a different object.

A new table or index is generally allocated pages from mixed extents. When the table or index grows to the point that it has eight pages, it then switches to use uniform extents for subsequent allocations. If you create an index on an existing table that has enough rows to generate eight pages in the index, all allocations to the index are in uniform extents.

 

 Understanding Pages and Extents : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190969(SQL.100).aspx