Hi all

I'm sure this has been asked many times.  

I have been using BCS and external lists to lookup data and then use the external data to update a field in a SharePoint list for a couple of years now without issue, however on this occasion the external data contains more than 100,000 rows.  As the limit for an external list is 2000 (I know this can be increased via adjusting the throttle) but wondered if there was a slicker way of looking up the values?

Basically the external data contains the index of hospital patients and I am using the ECT in the list to type in the patient ID and then for the workflow to update some of the list fields with values from the ECT.  The workflow uses the external list.

If not, exactly how much of a performance issue is ramping up the external list limit to say 100,000 and what is the actual limit?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks - Jon