Additional comments:

1) I advise my clients to size a database to contain 12-18 months worth of data and evaluate monthly or at least quarterly.

2) Recall that the clustering key is...

one last thing - did you check the Recycle bin on the backup server just in case?

Oh, and may I suggest you set up some task to check this system more frequently than every 3 days??

unless you have a windows file system auditing tool in place (rare) you have absolutely no way of knowing how/why/when this happened. Sorry.

max server memory and cpu affinity can get you "isolation for performance reasons" without giving up the memory another instance will chew up for nothing. And many times just...

>>Excellent catch Kevin

I get lucky sometimes - especially when my favorite three-letter word (UDF) is dropped!! 😎

I completely understand the need for a 32bit special-collation instance. But why do you need three 64 bit instances?

Actually I would be more interested in why you are mixing together so many instances rather than the 32/64 bit mix debate. I find that people use instances far...

What am I - chopped liver? I think I did mention UNpivot, right?? :hehe:

This will be a totally AWFUL design for reasons already covered. Throw in almost certainty of linked server usage and cross-server data pulls/joins. Disasterously bad performance will result.

Speaking...

sound like UNPIVOT to me, although you have a very sparse description of what you actually need and no sample data/code/expected outcome.

It is quite common if/when your tempdb IO subsystem is poor - which 99% of the clients I help have.

1) restore the entire database under a different name and pull the table out yourself (perhaps using Import Data Wizard).

2) use a third party tool (ApexSQL, Red-Gate, Idera, others?) to...

I will add that you can use extra memory on 32 bit systems with /PAE and AWE in SQL Server 2005+

Time for a call to Microsoft Support perhaps?