I've seen several people say that.  I have to ask "Why"?  The statistics are stored in the database just like...

Just curious, Rod.  Did you  ever figure this out?

Between updates, just set the database to "Read Only".  As an alternative, you can create individual File Groups with one or more Files in each and set those File Groups...

I don't work with Powershell in most cases, which means I'm not very good with it.  GOOGLE seems to work for this though.

Try this link.

https://sqlstudies.com/2022/07/07/powershellbasics-expanding-the-column-width-to-avoid-truncation/

The following supposedly applies only when your database is in the BULK_LOGGED or SIMPLE Recovery Models.

There is a feature known as "Fast Inserts".  I wrote about that hot mess back...

BWAA-HAA-HAA!  This was more of a test of knowledge about Christmas songs than I thought it would be. 😀

Merry Christmas, Steve, and thank you for the early present of seeing you at the Pittsburgh SQL Saturday.  It was a real treat, my ol' friend.

Thank you kindly for the feedback, windchaser... especially after nearly 20 years!  I couldn't believe it.

You've answered you own question.  The tables are, in fact, NOT identical.  You different indexes, which can make the difference between a full table scan (or clustered index scan) and...

I personally don't write code to do imports any more, but I sure used to.

I did pretty much the opposite as what others do.  There were some exceptions, of course,...

I find that a whole lot of people have some really serious problems with smaller data sets.  I been told probably hundreds of times that "performance doesn't matter...

For starters, change this...

DECLARE @cmd NVARCHAR(MAX);

... to this ...

DECLARE @cmd NVARCHAR(4000);

Then see the following for why...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/system-stored-procedures/xp-cmdshell-transact-sql#arguments

• This reply was modified 9 months ago by Jeff Moden. Reason: Correct to suggestion. Op used NVARCHAR, not VARCHAR

I find that a whole lot of people have some really serious problems with smaller data sets.  I been told probably hundreds of times that "performance doesn't matter because it...

The OP said "but that session is a background session with a command of "DB Startup" and that he has the logfile being backed up an truncating every hour but...

What type of files are you doing this for?  Plaiu text., CSV, TSV, PDF, what?