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 1 years 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?

You might want to send an email to webmaster@sqlservercentral.com with that question.

I think people have been going a bit nuts for the last 15 or so years and especially in the last 6 or so years.  I just found out about...

Interviewing for open position...

My boss: Rate your SQL skills & knowledge on a scale of 1 to 10.

Interviewee: 7 or 8

Me: Let's talk about backups and restores.

Interviewee: I...

Too much fun, Michael!

I have to disagree with the answer here.  If you run the code more than once, it comes up with the same 10 rows.  Therefor, they are NOT "random rows"....

Totally understood and I was just answering the new question.

Just to say it again, there is no...

Now that, I agree with!

A lot of people immediately respond with "Well, just turn on RCSI".  Folks really need to be careful...

Jeff. I'll take a crack at your question:

In your example, are you assuming the date column is indexed and would be used?  What if that is not the case,...