After partitioning, tests showed that we could sustain an insert rate of 10K rows per second for some time. As the table size grew past 10 million records, the insert rate dropped to about 8500 rows per second, but it stayed at that rate for well over 44 million records. I tested inserts up to 350 million records and we were able to sustain an insert rate of around 8500 rows per second. Coincidentally, during Michael Jackson’s memorial service, we actually did hit an incoming rate of a little over 8000 records per second for a few hours.