Grant Fritchey (2/26/2014)
The only part of that statement I would disagree with is outputting trace data to a table. I wouldn't recommend that. I would output it to a file (or more accurately, a series of files) and then load that into a table. I know the tool can output directly to a table, but that doesn't make it the most efficient mechanism.
You can also cause performance issues by sending the output back to your production server. I would recommend loading and analyzing your data somewhere else if possible. We have used SQL Express, which is free, on old hardware, which was free, as long as the daily purge can keep the data size below the limits.