Added indices on the two tables that used foreign keys to the delting table, and voila - delete finishes fast. Thanks for the tip, also using explain analyze, as someone else pointed out, would have shown me, where the problem comes from. Thanks everybody for helping. Gerhard -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general