>If the distribution of length is poisson with only a select few records falling above 8000 you could try splitting such logs into varchar(8000) plus varchar(max) overflow field for those few records to help with your speed problem - perhaps even by adding a flag on need for overflow. Hard to say if one of the arrows from that pouch could help not knowing aforementioned length distribution. Yes, ugly and band aid approach, but sometimes crutches help speed.

Those robots are evolving on a regular basis and their content varies from each interval process. So, while this idea is great, I cannot apply it.