Here's an example on Parameter values, expressions and sorting.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9381726/sort-table-by-parameter-reporting-services-2008

Can you post the script to create the linked server?

Also, who is the owner of both SQL Agent jobs?

I'll throw another alternative out there for you.

You could employ schemas to help group/separate these tables via functional areas.

So you could see something like

Reporting.SomeTable

Staging.SomeTable

If you are concerned about finding an...

Jeff Moden (5/22/2014)

I guess...

Have you looked into CPU contention or CPU bottlenecks?

Performance between the two is equal.

There are no "miscellaneous" waits in SQL Server. SQL Sentry has taken some of the "noise" waits and just grouped them under miscellaneous. You can ignore those for...

Richard Warr (5/22/2014)

That's better. In the unlikely event that anybody...

The benefit of creating the table first is the ability to control the data types being used a little more easily.

I will often use the Select into method for ease...

Tequel (5/22/2014)

Thanks, Jeff. Although the company I work for will benefit from it (it...

You are welcome.

Your question appeared to be about the partitioning and that is what my answer was in reference to.

Filegroups have no impact on table scans or index seeks when just splitting...

One

I would expect the behavior in 2008 to be more in line with what your single partition example was.

Are you using a 3rd party tool that is reporting the misc waits?