You're stuck. You either need to move to 2005 & use VARCHAR(MAX) or stay in 2000 and use TEXT. There's no in between.

DB2 supports (MAX), but I'm not sure about...

Look into using the NODES method. Here's an example from BOL:

SELECT C.query('.') as result

FROM Production.ProductModel

CROSS APPLY Instructions.nodes('

declare namespace MI="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/07/adventure-works/ProductModelManuInstructions";

/MI:root/MI:Location') as T(C)

WHERE ProductModelID=7

Congratulations. Good work.

Provisional-DBA? But that'd be true & not funny.

Uhm... wanna-be-DBA?

OK, but what did it mean?

You're hitting a variation of parameter sniffing (here's Ken Henderson's description of parameter sniffing). Usually this is a good thing, but sometimes it isn't. Ken shows a method for helping,...

I'd suggest two things, first, get an estimated execution plan with the parameters and compare it to an actual execution plan without. Also, because you're setting your date values to...

Do everything the previous poster said. If you're still getting the error, post the full error, not "something like this" because that's really hard to narrow down.

Start by succinctly explaining the problem you're trying to solve. Absolutely show hard number examples. Be very careful of using technical jargon, these aren't tslq coders, they're managers. Focus on...

Another vote for Itzik's books. Absolute must reads. Kalen Delaney's book on internals is a must read.

I've heard that Kalen's book on performance and troubleshooting is good but I haven't...

I'm flummoxed.

When I said recompiles, I did mean recompiles caused by the code, not a recompile that you ran. Do you have anying in the code that would cause the...

Duly chastised and I've proven my lack of reading ability, yet again.

Part of the problem is returning 1 million rows. Does the user need a million rows? Are they really using a million rows? Are they going to look at 1...

Whoa! What a mess. So, in short, FIRST() functions in a fashion somewhat, but not entirely, similar to TOP(1)?

What everyone else said is very correct. Multiple disks with multiple files and file groups is the way to go.

The one thing I would add is that I've read (can't...