I've inherited a asp.net website project that currently runs SQL Server 2000 as its backend.

I've been doing some databases changes on a local copy of the db using SQL Server 2005 Express. I've create a table using `varchar(max)` columns. They are used to stored snippets of XHTML that are of arbitrary length. 

While browsing around on stackoverflow I came across this:
[Are there any disadvantages to always using nvarchar(MAX)?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/148398/are-there-any-disadvantages-to-always-using-nvarcharmax)

User mattruma says he found out the "hard way" about using `varchar(max)` on SQL Server 2000.

What should I use instead of `varchar(max)` given that the live database runs on SQL Server 2000? 

Thanks in advance for any help!