title: SQL Server 2005 slows down as I keep adding rows
body: <p>As a preface, I am brand new to using SQL Server 2005; I know how to use the SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE, and INSERT commands and that's about it. I am also using Express Edition on my local PC (E8400 processor, 8GB of DDR2-800, 2 x 640GB SATA-II HDD in RAID 1)</p>
  
  <p>I have a table that I set up with 8 columns, all are NVARCHAR(Max) and I allow Null. I know in concept what a primary key is, but I don't have one (nor do I know how to set one up).</p>
  
  <p>My VB.NET program that I'm working on is downloading a historical stock price chart from Yahoo, for every single ticker symbol in existence. The first 50,000 rows or so I added was super fast. Then I went to bed, and when I woke up it was still running - but the rate of row additions has slowed waaaaaay down; I noticed this around row 300,000. I always expected the rate of row addition to be constant over time, but obviously this is not so!</p>
  
  <p>From browsing other Stack Overflow questions, I suspect my slow down is related to my piss-poor table setup. If this is the case, where should I begin first to fix this, and are there any good resources I could read up on to get started? I'm hoping this is something simple I can fix :)</p>
  
  <p>In case it matters, this is how I'm adding rows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>cmdtext = "IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT DateStamp FROM DailyPrice WHERE (DateStamp = '" +     datestamp + "' AND Ticker = '" + ticker + "')) INSERT INTO DailyPrice (Ticker,OpenPrice,ClosePrice,HighPrice,LowPrice,AdjustedClose,Volume,DateStamp) VALUES('" + ticker + "','" + openprice + "','" + closeprice + "','" + highprice + "','" + lowprice + "','" + adjustedclose + "','" + volume + "','" + datestamp + "')"
                  cmd = New SqlCommand(cmdtext, conn)
                  howmanygotinserted = cmd.ExecuteNonQuery
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I iterate through that for every stinking row of the CSV file, which is around 30,000 rows per CSV file (and I have over 5000 of them).</p>