>>>Hi all,
>>>
>>>Today I deleted 25,000 records from a 30,000 record table, and packed it. A SQL (40 records) which had been taking <1 sec. now took 15 sec.
>>>:-(((
>>>So, I:
>>>
>>>a. reindexed. Still slow
>>>
>>>b. re-packed Still slow
>>>
>>>c. checked every clause in the SQL and matched them with indexes. Still slow
>>>
>>>d. Restored the original. Speed was fine. :-))
>>>
>>>e. Deleted, speed was fine. :-)
>>>
>>>f. Packed - slow again :-((
>>>
>>>g. Copied data (5K records) to a temp file, ZAPped and appended.
>>>
>>>Speed is now terrific - almost too fast to see. :-)
>>>
>>>Question: Why did this happen?
>>>
>>>TIA
>>>Barbara
>>
>>Try and delete the index, then re-create it again.
>>
>>Dave
>
>Deleting and recreating the index is like , as my wife would say, taking a water pill at that time of the month....gets rid of the bloat.

Matt & Dave: I did the delete/recreate as well as a simple reindex. Didn't help. I COULD replicate it the whole matter, as you saw from my restoring the original data. I have a feeling that Vlad Tatavu's suggestion about disk fragmentation was correct. If I ever have time, maybe I'll try a restore, delete, pack, defrag trial to see if it works.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.
Barbara