>Nigel,
>
> Can you post your code here so we can take a look ???
>
>Thanks,
>rod

Rod,

I think I solved this with the settings on the SQL Server. What I ended up doing was to set automatic transactions off - this was my second setting change (I can't remember offhand what my first was). My first increased from 3500 per hour to 30,000 per hour. The automatic transaction setting threw it up to 100,000 per hour. This is still too slow for me but our updates will be done at midnight and should only ever top 50,000.

I have made many tests since then (lots of late nights) and 'tweeked' SQL Server to operate over a large range of updates and am testing the latest update as I write.

Many thanks for the offer,