Really basic query speed question..

Hey guys. In general, better to have 30 simple queries running to like 6 different tables, or 1 table which could return all results in one query?

Purely for speed. It doesn't matter if it's less work for me that space is duplicated. What does SQL Server run faster?
Oh yes, and the tables have about 800 rows.

If you properly index your 1 table it should not be slower than making the database chug 30 times against 6 tables. Every table has behind-the-scenes information stored in system tables. This is where SQL Server retrieves indexes and primary keys for peforming selects, for deciding how many times to scan a table when looking for data etc... You would end up with 6 times the number of places SQL Server has to go retrieve this informaiton if you break it up. You said your tables have 800 rows. Times 6 that is a measly 4,800 records. 800 or 4.800 is not significant number of records to SQL Server. I would say create one table and create an index on those fields most commonly searched so SQL server can be as fast as possible retrieving the data, and index any fields you may use for joining to other tables if they are not already part of a foreign key (which they should be).