Hi,
I have met this issue recently. I made a script that inserts poker betting weights into an Azure database from a CSV.
First I started with single inserts but I quickly dropped the idea is it was very slow.
In SQL Server, you can insert multiple
INSERT INTO tbl ( field1, field2, field3 )
VALUES
('Value1', 1, 'V1'),
('Value2', 2, 'V2'),
('Value3', 3, 'V3'),
I tried with different number of records in one statement and it seemed the most effective with around 500 records at once.
The amount of time it takes depends on the number of fields not only the records. Indexes and keys also affect performance. The less indexes and keys you have on a table, the faster you can insert/update it... and the slower you can run select statements on it.
Anyway, I'm happy to try it. If I won't manage to insert 10.000 records in 20 minutes, you owe me nothing.
Regards,
Balint