dan-572483 (2/25/2014)
I am trying to partition a pair of existing 200 million row tables to improve reporting performance.
Don't waste your time. Partitioning is not a performance tuning technique. While it is possible to get performance improvements out of partitioning, they don't necessarily come by default, queries usually have to be written to take advantage of partitioning.
https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/database-administration/gail-shaws-sql-server-howlers/
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability