My article on Data Access Performance Comparison with.NET, ASP.NET and ADO.NET was published today on AspAlliance.com. In it, I compare the performance of several common data access techniques, including using DataReaders vs using DataTable or DataSet constructs. The one big surprise I ran into was just how much an open DataReader can cost on a busy site. The words instant death come to mind. One more reason why I’m not completely sold on only passing DataReaders between methods using delegates.
There’s a download that didn’t make it into the initial article where you can see all the source code and run the tests yourself. I’m uploading it and linking it now.