Hi, I have a very tricky situation here. A client bought a Dell dual-machine to be used as Database Server, and we have a cheaper machine used in development. With identical databases, configuration parameters and running the same query, our machine is almost 3x faster. I tried to increase the shared_buffers and other parameters, but the result is still the same. I would like to know what can I do to check what can be "holding" the Dell server (HD, memory, etc). Both machines run Debian Linux. I'll post configuration details below, so you'll can figure my scenario better. ==> Dell PowerEdge: HD: SCSI processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz stepping : 9 cpu MHz : 2791.292 cache size : 512 KB processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz stepping : 9 cpu MHz : 2791.292 cache size : 512 KB # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1010 996 14 0 98 506 ==> Other machine: HD: IDE processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 15 model : 2 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.26GHz stepping : 5 cpu MHz : 2262.166 cache size : 512 KB #free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 439 434 4 0 16 395 -- +---------------------------------------------------+ | Alvaro Nunes Melo Atua Sistemas de Informacao | | al_nunes@xxxxxxxxxxx www.atua.com.br | | UIN - 42722678 (54) 327-1044 | +---------------------------------------------------+