On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:06 PM, Boris Epstein <borepstein at gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I haven't thought of it this way. In fact it matches with this description: > > http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/temporary-files.html > > I can kind of see the advantages; the disadvantages, of course, are that a > major transaction can not be resumed in case the mysqld process is stopped. > > I don't think it would make much sense to try to finish a query after a restart since at that point the temp table might not reflect the real data anyway. Have you tried adding an index on the fields in your query so it doesn't have to sort everything when you make the query? Mysql isn't too bright about optimizing 3-table joins, but with one or 2 and pre-indexed fields it shouldn't need much time or extra space. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com