How to tell when a sql table was last accessed

Question

This question is basically an extension of this question:

How can I tell if a database table is being accessed anymore? Want something like a "SELECT trigger"

In the query the author provided as a solution in his post, I assume a null value would mean that a table hasn't been accessed since the last time SQL Server was restarted.

My question is: Is there a way to tell when a table was last accessed, if the last access was before the last time SQL restarted? Also, how can I tell when the last time SQL was restarted?

Answer 1

For sql server start time in SQL Server 2008,

select sqlserver_start_time from sys.dm_os_sys_info

For last user access since server restart,

select DB_NAME(us.[database_id]) as [db], OBJECT_NAME(us.[object_id], us.[database_id]) as [object], 
MAX(us.[last_user_lookup]) as [last_user_lookup], MAX(us.[last_user_scan]) as [last_user_scan], MAX(us.[last_user_seek]) as [last_user_seek] 
from sys.dm_db_index_usage_stats as us 
where us.[database_id] = DB_ID() AND us.[object_id] = OBJECT_ID('tblname')
group by us.[database_id], us.[object_id]; 

I log this table daily so I have it after restarts. It can also act as an index audit after they have been dropped.