Dear Bricklen,
Try setting work_mem to something larger, like 40MB to do that sort step in memory, rather than spilling to disk. The usual caveats apply though, like if you have many users/queries performing sorts or aggregations, up to that amount of work_mem may be used at each step potentially resulting in your system running out of memory/OOM etc.
Thanks, I'll bear that in mind as a strategy. It's good to know. But since Dave has saved me the sort altogether, I'll go with his plan.
Best wishes, James \/\/\ -- ------------------------------------------------------------ James Cranch http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~jdc41 -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance