Looks like with SELECT INTO, the table cannot exist already and the destination will be a partitioned table in my scenario. I realized that the select into is fast because...

By pre allocated storage do you mean setting the database file size? I have not tried that, but will do so.

The servers are on the same hardware (virtualized). This...

I want to transfer it to a different database on another server, but for my testing so far i am just using a different database on the same server. The...