For MS-SQL, a lot of people use MS Access. Text fields have a 255 character limit. For what you need, I suggest using a Memo field, which has a 65,535 character limit. You can "chain" together rows if you occassionally needed more than 64k. If 64k is not enough, look into Oracle's "Long" datatype which allows a field up to 2Gb in length. Anyone know the particulars about MS SQL Server?
From the DataType Property help page in Access 97:
Text - (Default) Text or combinations of text and numbers, as well as numbers that don't require calculations, such as phone numbers. Up to 255 characters or the length set by the FieldSize property, whichever is less. Microsoft Access does not reserve space for unused portions of a text field.
Memo - Lengthy text or combinations of text and numbers. Up to 65,535 characters. (If the Memo field is manipulated through DAO and only text and numbers [not binary data] will be stored in it, then the size of the Memo field is limited by the size of the database.)