> I have a problem, large table, approx 175 fields, around 190,000
> records, I did the following SQL:
>
> SELECT REC_NB FROM TABLE1
> the plan is TABLE1 NATURAL
>
> It took over 3.5 minutes to return the first record!

The problem is either in your application, that waits until all records are fetched,
or in that database contains huge number of records that your transaction can't see
(either deleted, but not garbage collected records, or inserted, but not committed
before start of your transaction).

Ivan
http://www.volny.cz/iprenosil/interbase