> You will find turning Forced Writes OFF is a lot faster...
>
> BUT!!!! only do this if you are populating a DB, have it backed up,
> or can otherwise recover from an error very quickly.
>
> DO NOT turn forced writes off for a production db, and especially do
> not muck about with the forced writes setting when there are
> connected users.

Believe me, I've learned my lesson with that. :)
This insertion is done in-house, before it gets sent to anyone.
I don't suppose there's a way to set forced writes from a SQL statement, similarly to the way indexes can be activated/deactivated?
Failing that, I'm going to have to play more with the idea of external files.. The data we get from our supplier isn't in a fixed length format. I wanted to keep it as is, because I already had a utility to convert comma and tab delimited files to insert statements. Yes, I'm lazy. :)
I did a test with forced writes off, and it certainly sped it up, by about a factor of 4. Whether that's going to overcome the possible human error of sending out a DB with forced writes off, we'll see.
If anyone else has any good ideas, please feel free to voice them.

- Jason



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