Micheal

I forgot one more thing, and maybe Helen can give some input here.
There are two firebird.conf settings - SortMemBlockSize and
SortMemUpperLimit
By default these are commented out, so I wonder if firebird will use all
available ram to do its in memory tasks if you dont throttle it by
specifying limits.
I remember that Oracle used to hog the server totally if you didnt put a
chain on it.

Anyway, another 2 cents

Regards
Gary