SQL Server DELETE is slower with indexes

Question

I have an SQL Server 2005 database, and I tried putting indexes on the appropriate fields in order to speed up the DELETE of records from a table with millions

Answer 1

JohnB is deleting about 75% of the data. I think the following would have been a possible solution and probably one of the faster ones. Instead of deleting the data, create a new table and insert the data that you need to keep. Create the indexes on that new table after inserting the data. Now drop the old table and rename the new one to the same name as the old one.

The above of course assumes that sufficient disk space is available to temporarily store the duplicated data.