Delete rows from a large table I have a very large table and I must delete big amount of data from it until some point.

The table has only one non-clustered index on a column which is not relevant to use in my delete query. The first idea that comes to me is to include to the index a unique column which I could use in my delete query.

My question is, do you think it will be a good option or something better can be done?
You should do 2 things for efficiently deleting the data from your big table :


Delete in batches and/or do careful batching
Watch out your Transaction log size - if db in simple recovery mode - perform frequent CHECKPOINTS or if db is full recovery mode - perform frequent log backups.