>>In my tests Identity does appear to respect appended order, but is that just happenstance or something I can rely on?
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>>>This might or might not be relevant - does the underlying SQL table have a primary key and a clustered index on that identity column?
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>Hi Kevin. Yes, the identity column is PK with clustered index.

OK, off-hand, not sure if I'd have the means to prove conclusively 100% that they will always come back in appended order, but I'd be surprised if they didn't. (I realize that doesn't help)

If you had said there was an identity column, but no clustered index, I would have said, "maybe they will come back in order 10 times out of 10...but not sure I'd want to rely on that". But with a clustered index, I'd be almost stunned if they didn't come back in order.