Helen:

> First thought is that, without the extra column, the record size

fits into

> one database page, while the extra 8 bytes tips it over into a

second

> page. Perhaps the different versions of the database have

different page

> sizes?

No. All databases I used in my tests have a page size of 4096

> Or perhaps the restore cleaned up some accumulated back versions

and/or

> indexes...

Another No.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I ran another test with a restored
database on the "problematic" server. And it was still the 500ms
answer.

Any other idea?

If it's useful I could offer two network protocols (ethereal)?
One with the 43 columns (slow) and one with 44 columns (fast).

--Heiko