What is the best way to store historical data in SQL Server 2005/2008?

Question

My simplified and contrived example is the following:-

Lets say that I want to measure and store the temperature (and other values) of all the worlds\' towns on a daily

Answer 1

Another alternative could be to go for one table for all data and have a view for the current temperature. This will not help performance but could well aid readability/maintainability. You could even go for an indexed view to improve performance if you have the appropriate version of sql .