I think I've discovered an optimization problem with TOP and wondered if I'm missing something obvious here.

I'm developing some standard routines that I can use in an app that will use either fox tables or upsized SQL data. Native Fox access returns data at the normal 2-3 times faster than SQL except when I try to use TOP in the SELECT. Then, Fox *crawls*!

For example, I am running the same query against a 64,000 record, 120 MB Fox table and the same table after upsizing it to SQL. An index tag for "ship_no" exists in both data sets. I execute the following line:

select top 21 * from tship where ship_no >= ?m.ship_no order by ship_no

The performance I get is:
SQLEXEC() thru SQL Server: 2.956 secs
SELECT thru native Fox: 83.727
SQLEXEC() thru Fox ODBC: 166.490

Has anyone had any experience with this? Any suggestions? Thanks.