Speaking generally, it really sounds like you're on the right track using partitioning. Andy Novick (MVP, consultant, nice guy) has presented at PASS and our local users group on using partitions to handle hundreds of gb of data, doing just the sort of actions you're talking about here. If you attended this year's PASS Summit you can get his slide deck and, when they're available, a recording of the session. Otherwise, you might swing by his web site[/url], because I think the stuff is there too.