New .net programmer here. As a new programmer, I always try to follow the best practices that I can when I am working. Today I started with SQL Server, and I asked co-worker which data type should I use for a user description column. He told me to use nvarchar(MAX) and I did and it worked great.
However, should we always use nvarchar(max) for this cases? or is it better to assign something like 500 characters?
I ask because I googled a little bit and I saw people saying that nvarchar(max) reserves a lot of memory for the column, which could reduce the performance of the database eventually.
Edit: Awesome answers guys, I´m clear on the topic now. No unicode stuff, therebefore im gonna go for varchar(600)