as I say the optimiser is unable to take disk layout into consideration.

I take it the query in question is being run from the same location and that the session...

you should examine the query plans for both calls, this type of behaviour is well documented probably under parameter sniffing. Casting the parameters in the function to variables within the...

a "mastercard moment"

sql2000 runs in 32 bit mode on 64 bit o/s ( only itanium can run 64 bit sql2k ) and I've read of some performance problems running sql 32 bit...

sorry to disagree but you don't need the 3gb switch , I'm happily using 11gb of ram on a 12gb server without using the 3gb switch. 3gb switch is generally...

Do you mean you have one log shipping standby server at each site?

How your log shipping etc. works all depends upon how failover is dealt with. If you use client...

Hmm I see ms have been re-organising their web sites ( again ) try this link as a start

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/271509/EN-US/

I have an adapted ms proc I use which writes to...

it might not be aware ( internally ) of the changes - try an update statistics on the table first. or a dbcc updateusage ( although that may take time )

I'm...

If you set mixed mode and didn't disable builtin admins - log onto box as a local admin, or get your domain account added to the local admins group. Open...

I've never used this and can't see any good reason to use this, on the assumption that firing off jobs etc. on a period of low cpu might not actually...

actually all this advice is useful but to isolate what is actually using the cpu can be quite tricky - be careful of spotlight, I've found that it will degrade...

You really won't want to do this!! ( collect all )  Most methods to capture this type of info set a lower threshold, e.g. anything that blocks for over 2...

You can't force a parallel plan using maxdop, only restrict the available processors. The only settings I can figure would alter the plan would be stats and indexes, are the...

agree with Rudy, if you have the window to do so - do every day. It's quite interesting to note that systems initially set to run stats once a week...

don't know about sp_who2 , never use it, parallelism can cause blocking on same spid - check out cxpacket locks/waits.

I agree about sequential . short but not totally appropriate for...