Please forgive my ignorance - but this seems like a lot of extra overhead:

DECLARE @max_id INT

SET @max_id = (SELECT max(contactid) FROM [Adventureworks].[Person].[Contact])

INSERT INTO Contacts

SELECT TOP 1000000 --<<<--THE NUMBER OF ROWS!

FirstName = (SELECT TOP 1 FirstName

FROM adventureworks.person.contact

WHERE ContactID = ABS(CONVERT(BINARY(6),NEWID()) % @max_id) + 1),

LastName = (SELECT TOP 1 LastName

FROM adventureworks.person.contact

WHERE ContactID = ABS(CONVERT(BINARY(6),NEWID()) % @max_id) + 1)

FROM

Master.dbo.SysColumns t1,

Master.dbo.SysColumns t2

GO

Is there a downside to a single update/select without all the additional subqueries and functions you have in the article?

INSERT INTO Contacts (FirstName, LastName)

SELECT TOP 100000

FirstName,

LastName

FROM [Adventureworks].[Person].[Contact]

Maybe there's something that I just don't understand (I'm relatively new to this stuff)