First off, I know very little about MySQL, so I can't speak to that, but I suspect migration is probably not the best plan.
In SQL Server, there are more options available than going straight to table-level partitioning, which is Enterprise and Datacenter Editions only:
Per your comment on the other answer, if this is simply a research project, change editions to Developer Edition -- this is a Datacenter engine with a licence that doesn't allow you to expose the instance in production. This may or may not be suitable. Cost is ~$50 for this edition, and you can do all the table-level partitioning you want.
Data can be partitioned using partitioned views with multiple backing tables (available in all editions). This gives you the advantage of partition elimination at the cost of manageability.
Data can be split over multiple files in a single file group and/or each table can go in its own file group (available in all editions). With terabyte amounts of data, you should be doing this anyway, but I'm mentioning it in case you're not.
What's interesting is that these techniques can be used in any combination. For pure performance, consider implementing all of them.
The best strategy, however, is unclear without more information about (a) the structure of the data, and (b) what you're trying to do with the data.
