Identities are created type numeric, scale 0, and precision X. A precision of 9 means the largest identity value the server will be able to process is 10^9-1, or 1,000,000,000-1, or 999,999,999. However, when it comes to Burning identities, the server will burn (based on the default value of 5000) .05% of 1,000,000,000 or 500,000 values in the case of a crash. (You may think an identity precision allowing for 1 Billion rows is optimistic, but I once saw a precision set at 14...then the database crashed and their identity values jumped 5 TRILLION. Needless to say they abandoned their original design. Even worse, SQL server defaults precision to 18 if you don't specify it upon table creation...that's a MINIMUM 10,000,000,000 jump in identity values upon a crash with the absolute minimum burn factor)