Bulk insert with tablock hint will improve performance.

Still several factors to be considered, physical placements of data, index, tempdb files, fast disk subsystem..etc.

I still remember I also had a bizaare problem in the past with log shipping getting out of sync which has something to do about the dates not being updated...

Yes, data files can also be fragmented. You need to use a defrag software to defrag it like any other operating system files.

It is a good practice to pre-allocate your tlog size, but you may want to leave it to auto-grow (unless you do not have plenty of disk space), otherwise you...

There are tons of scripts out there, make sure you pick out one that accepts parameters like dbname, or all databases, or user/system databases, and the cleanup task (file retention)...

If you're recoverability requirement is point in time recovery, you'll need it in full mode. Keep your tlog backups as often as possible. You don't need to truncate the tlogs.

That was a filegroup backup, restore it using a filegroup restore. They sent you that part, probably because the data you need is all in that filegroup. If you...