Please see this link for fast row count in SQL Server

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/archive/2010/01/14/Quickest-way-to-get-the-row-count-of-a-table.aspx

>Thanks Sergey,
>
>thought I was going crazy!
>
>>>I have an SQL 2000 table that the Properties shows 1990 rows, but in the Open all it appears to have 2000 and if I use a Foxpro remote view, it shows 2000 records.
>>>
>>Hi Joel,
>>
>>There're two ways to get total records count in SQL Server table:
>>1. SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mytable
>>Produces correct count but may take long on tables with a lot of records.
>>
>>2. SELECT rowcnt FROM sysindexes WHERE id=OBJECT_ID('dbo.mytable') and indid < 2
>>Fast but result isn't relaible because it's based on data stored in sysindexes tables which may or may not be current.
>>
>>Most likely SQL Server uses the second method because it's much faster on big tables.