Use Format function available from SQL Server 2012

select format(getdate(),'hh:mm')

Insert into sometable
(timepart)
values
(
format(getdate(),'hh:mm'))

Output:

07:08

No there isn't a data type for this. The smallest is time(0) , which is accurate to one second.

SELECT
    -- Returns time in the format hh:mm:ss
    CAST(GETDATE() AS TIME(0))
;

You could add a check constraint to ensure the seconds are always equal to 00, but I'm not sure what value this would add.

If you're using SQL-Server 2008+ , you can use the TIME type and just reset the seconds and just ignore them while selecting.

If not, you can consider saving them as strings(extract the HH:MI) or integers(counting minutes after 00:00). Like @destination-data said, you should note that you won't be able to use the time functions available for SQL-Server, but you will be able to convert them back to a date if necessary .

I think when you need only hour and minute use two columns for each one instead like this:

Hour tinyint
Minute tinyint

Try this:

SELECT FORMAT(GETDATE(),'HH:mm')

It is always stored the only thing you can do is to edit the value before it gets posted so the seconds (and also the milliseconds which are also stored) are set to 0.

I do this in my c# application where all inserts end updates are passing through one routine that checks for datetime datatype and then filters out the milliseconds.

Here's an alternate suggestion if performance is important:

SELECT CONVERT([varchar](5),GETDATE(),(108))

Same result but much faster than FORMAT

If display with second is required again:

SELECT (CONVERT([varchar](5),GETDATE(),(108))+':00')