<p>I have a rather large (many gigabytes) table of data in SQL Server that I wish to move to a table in another database on the same server.</p>

<p>The tables are the same layout.</p>

<p>What would be the most effecient way of going about doing this?</p>

<p>This is a one off operation so no automation is required.</p>

<p>Many thanks.</p>

If it is a one-off operation, why care about
top
efficiency so much?
```
```
SELECT * INTO OtherDatabase..NewTable FROM ThisDatabase..OldTable
```
```
or
```
```
INSERT OtherDatabase..NewTable
SELECT * FROM ThisDatabase..OldTable
```
```
...and let it run over night. I would dare to say that using SELECT/INSERT INTO on the same server is not far from the best efficiency you can get anyway.