Hi I have currently some trouble with inserts into a table INSERT INTO LPP (PPID, LID) SELECT DISTINCT PPid, LID FROM (SELECT * FROM PP WHERE s_id = sid) pp INNER JOIN has_protein hp1 ON pp.p1id = hp1.pid INNER JOIN has_protein hp2 ON pp.p2_id = hp2.pid INNER JOIN (SELECT * FROM L WHERE s_id = sid) l ON (hp1.pid = l.p1id AND hp2.pid = l.p2id AND hp1.ppos + pp.s1 = l.s1 AND hp2.ppos + pp.s2 = l.s2) OR (hp1.pid = l.p2id AND hp2.pid = l.p1id AND hp1.ppos + pp.s1 = l.s2 AND hp2.ppos + pp.s2 = l.s1) ; If I run only SELECT DISTINCT PPid, LID FROM (SELECT * FROM PP WHERE s_id = 708) pp INNER JOIN has_protein hp1 ON pp.p1id = hp1.pid INNER JOIN has_protein hp2 ON pp.p2_id = hp2.pid INNER JOIN (SELECT * FROM L WHERE s_id = 708) l ON (hp1.pid = l.p1id AND hp2.pid = l.p2id AND hp1.ppos + pp.s1 = l.s1 AND hp2.ppos + pp.s2 = l.s2) OR (hp1.pid = l.p2id AND hp2.pid = l.p1id AND hp1.ppos + pp.s1 = l.s2 AND hp2.ppos + pp.s2 = l.s1) ; it returns 200620 rows in 170649 ms ( thats just under 3 minutes). I stopped the actual insert after about 8h. The table that the insert happens to, is following: CREATE TABLE LPP ( ppid bigint NOT NULL, lid bigint NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT pk_lpp PRIMARY KEY (ppid,lid) ) I also tried without the primary key but that one is still running for more that a day. Currently the table LPP holds 471139 rows. Its linking the PP and the L table. There are no foreign keys referring to that table nor are there any other constraints on it. Previously I had foreign keys on lid and ppid refering to the L and PP table. But in a desperate try to get some speed up I deleted these. - But still... I am running postgresql 9.2 on a windows 2008 R2 server with 256 GB and the database is on something like a raid 1+0 (actually a raid1e) consisting of 3x4TB disks (limit of what could easily be fitted into the server). At the given time there were no concurrent access to any of the involved tables. Has anybody some idea why the insert takes so long and/or how to speed things up a bit? I could live with something like half an hour - better would be in minutes. Thanks for any responds, Lutz Fischer -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance