Yes, a very wide table (many columns) will be less efficient than a table
with less columns (this is a matter of relational concepts and
normalization).
I suspect you could re-check your relational design and find many fields
that are very repetitive. If you really think you need all this columns in
the same table because of the nature of your application (which I doubt), it
will be reasonable to divide the fields in the table according to the
frecuency of use of each group of fields (a lot of fields will be almost
fixed, -not updated often- and other will be updated frequenly). Like the
parts of the record that are related to general iformation and the other
fields that are related to transactions or balances or status.
I hope this helps.
http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/MySQL/Normal/Normal1/print_htmlhttp://www.sqlmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=4887&pg=1
Good day!
Ligia