Hi Markus,

Yes, I see what you mean, but...

I'm running these query tests standalone so no other users in the way.

1) There are no triggers on the table

2) It's just 1 table

3) How could it be being blocked, I wonder ?

I suppose (regardless of the details of the query) I have a conceptual problem to get my head around - which is - why doesn't SQL use more of the resources on the server to do the job faster ?

All I can think of that might slow it down is some kind of locking.blocking - but I can't think where this might be coming from, when the behaviour is noted in a simple delete statement.