• If you're inserting 2.5 million records into a table then you're index will be severly defragmented. You should consider rebuilding all indexes involved or at least reorganize them. And aslo: While you're deleting and inserting 2.5 million records, does your other select-queries really need to be read committed? how about putting in a WITH (NOLOCK) in your select statements - that way your deletes and inserts will have an exclusive table lock while working, but your selects will still work - though you'll might get some dirty reads..