In short - performance. Indexes help SQL retrieve data but slow down the inserts/updates of the data. It's too broad a question to give any more of a meaningful answer...

Perhaps it is what it is - I am not shooting the messenger! - but the core task of copying a DB to another server (albeit 2005 -- > 2000...

Hi Guys - thanks for the replies. All good stuff and confirming to me that a) things are never quite as straight forward as we hope and b) that a...

Thanks again for your replies.

I see what you mean about the data and it's format. Sorry about not providing specifics. The varchar(max) field that I am searching through is the...

Well the initial test took half an hour... probably quite acceptable offline as it will be run, but there are overlaps in the 'look up types' - so that is...

Good point on the strings in strings... that may bring me some more unhappiness 🙁

I did spot the negatives - but thought i'd let that one go 🙂

I'm girding...

PS - ha, I don't even remeber the third of a century mark!

Hmmm, well the out of hours bit is OK as I am actually running it as a part of a daily load - so I am collating daily totals and...

That could well be a work of art - many thanks! Truly marvellous for one looking so young.

It certainly does the job on my test data - i hope it...

A quick update... temporary solution is to actually turn off the "use headers" option in the connection so that the first row is text (i.e. import the headers then delete...

Thanks Wayne - no I haven't and not sure I'll be able to in the 'risk free' environment I have to enhabit!

On this issue you're Avatar says it all I...

The data type at the destination is varchar but the assumed data type of "double" nullifies any data that doesn't fit. So the alpha numeric data and the 'numeric' looking...

Thanks - I will look into that for sure (I am not very familier with BCP - i am not a DBA just an underpaid developer) 🙁

I was (still am)...

Thanks for the reply - but the select statement is fine and was only provided as an illustration - i have taken my longer convoluted statement and depersonalised it (possibly...