What is so "invisible" about binary(4)? if you don't like seeing it in hex cast it out to something more friendly.

create table #temp1 ( bigint1 char(4), bigint2 binary(4) )

insert into #temp1 values ( char(0) + char(0) + char(0) + char(0), 0x00000000 )
insert into #temp1 values ( char(255) + char(255) + char(255) + char(255), 0xFFFFFFFF )
insert into #temp1 values ( char(255) + char(255) + char(255) + char(255), 1234 )

select * from #temp1
select cast( bigint2 as char(4) ) from #temp1
select cast( cast( bigint2 as bigint ) as decimal(10,0)) from #temp1

>I need to record a 4 bytes unsigned value in my table (range 0 - 4,294,967,295). Currently I am using bigint to represent this value but I am wasting around 3 bytes per record (especially considering that a record is 2100 bytes).
>
>Anywho, do I have any other options than to use bigint? Does MSSQL have an unsigned field type?
>I know I could use binary(4) but the field is PK so I would like it to be a "visible" type.
>
>Are there any problems using binary(x) as PK?