With a table that large, I doubt statistics were calculated using 100% coverage, assuming not all the search arguments in your query are the first columns in indexes.

For a start,...

Re 1:

All reads are from the buffer cache, aka logical reads. If the data pages are not in the buffer cache, physical reads are first performed to bring the...

This was what we did previously. We had one large database, with a lot of large tables and indexes that grew over time. When we wanted to identify...

Here's a suggestion: copy the backup files to a redundant box, and run a RESTORE VERIFYONLY on those files using SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. SSEE actually allows you...

Red Gates' SQL Backup does not support object level restore. Other products do, but there is a caveat with that feature, the last time we looked. In short,...

>> Sometimes this query takes 10 seconds, but at other times it runs for 10 minutes and does not complete.

Perhaps when it took 10 seconds, the data pages were...

Profiler displays the physical reads. The first time you run a query, SQL Server retrieves data from disk, and places them in the buffer cache. These disk (physical)...

Red Gates' SQL Backup has a nice transaction log restore feature, where you could just pass something like this:

EXEC master..sqlbackup '-sql "RESTORE LOG mydb FROM DISK = [e:\backups\mydb*.sqb] WITH RECOVERY"'

and...

It would appear that you are backing up to a remote drive. I would suggest backing up to a local drive first, and see if that completes successfully.

The msdb..backupset table contains most of the information you need.  For file/tape information, link to the backupmediaset and backupmediafamily tables.  Only details of successful backups are recorded in these tables.

As...

In SQL Server 2005, you have the option to perform page-level restores.  See Performing Page Restores in SQL Server 2005 Books Online for details.

You need to ensure that the SQL Backup service startup user has rights to access the network share.

That's a lot of backups for a 2 GB database

If you have the CPU, time and space to spare, why not?

As for backing...

>>  when does the LSN get updated

Technically, the databases' LSN get 'updated' when new transactions are created in the database.  These transactions then get written to the transaction log file. ...

If you were restoring to a new database, SQL Server would have to first create and allocate space for the 66 GB data/log files, which may take a while.  If...