You could create a separate stored procedure that accepts a spid as an input parameter. The stored proc would be a simple WAITFOR command that waits for a period...

You said you have 8 CPUs. ...

I mean within the SQL itself. Assume something like this fictional code:

IF (condition...) BEGIN

SET EXECUTION_TIMEOUT=1000 SELECT * FROM dbo.VeryLargeTable -- If the above select-statment takes more than 1000ms it...

I also missed the leading wildcards in the criteria... be advised that will cause a full-scan of the table/index.  No index seek will be possible.

It looks like many of your ONs should be ANDs, instead.

You might not be able to drop the filegroup because something still remains on it. Here are a couple of queries copied from other locations on the internet that...

On that note, here's an article that might be of interest to you, Grant.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/morse-code-back-looking-ditch-twitter-180981309/

Heh... this is more what it reminds me of in a couple of the places I do work for...

I have to ask... what "nature...

Totally understood on that... but do you suppose that they'll actually use your good code to "normalize the data" and store that normalized data in a database or...

That's always true.  The problem with that is the panic that ensues...

Maybe I'm still suffering from insufficient caffeine levels this morning, but I have to admit, David, I'm confused.  Why did you change the row numbers from what the op originally...

Totally understood on that... but do you suppose that they'll actually use your good code to "normalize the data" and store that normalized data in a database or store the...

Also remember that when you're trying to...

As a bit of a sidebar, I just watched the day 3 presentation that Kimberly Tripp gave.  It seems that really old technology still prevails and that technology is SQL...