Keep in mind two important limits:
Please see this link for more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh144965.aspx You should always define filters (it can be limit/comparison/wildcard filter) so that you can narrow your search and overcome others restrictions regarding a count of rows in the database. Especially when working with high volume of items, there might be cases in which you may have millions of items to pick, the bcs picker will show up to 200 items (this is a SharePoint restriction).
Please take a look at these articles about filter creation:
Also you may implement paging. Please take a look at these articles:
This info was taken from forum discussion: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010general/thread/9dba356c-65f3-49be-a452-6934baee7216 Please note: Also check out the SharePoint 2010 Best Practice Overview page at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8666.sharepoint-2010-best-practices-en.aspx
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