>>Where are you running the SQL? When I query 500,000 records to my hard drive, it takes less than 2 seconds on average. Something doesn't seem right with your query...
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>No, that's about right. But I momentarily get the hourglass when using the SELECT statement, with about a one second delay, while the SEEK followed by COPY TO ARRAY is instantaneous.
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>My guess is that my particular situation demonstrates the overhead of using SQL statements (i.e., the internal housekeeping) vs the other method. In other words, SQL won't query a 1000 record database in 1/100th the time of a 100,000 record database, all other things being equal. The bigger the source table, and the bigger the resultant set, the better SQL operates compared to other methods.

Yes, I think that makes good sense. You can sort of "feel" the SQL overhead especially on small tables where you might expect instantaneous results.