This is a similar problem to the one listed by Guy B, only in my case, FM is slow in several areas. It's slow to start up & open files, slow when displaying lists, slow to execute scripts... I'm guessing there's no easy answer to this question, since there are so many possibilities: we're running old software (client 6, server 5.5) on an old OS (Win 2K Server), and there are intricate scripts and 100+ fields in most of our DBs. Much of it wasn't created by me- I was lucky enough to inherit this mess when I got hired.

Let me isolate one specific example and posit a direct question:

We have a value list with abbreviated names of 70+ properties, and this usually takes about 10 seconds to display when the field is clicked on. Is there any way to speed up the load process, or am I asking too much of this poor database?

Thanks in advance.

It's hard to say, but look for unstored calcs, those can really kill performance.

Can you elaborate on looking up "unstored calcs"? I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to.

Thanks.

From the online help:

"FileMaker Pro stores most calculation field values immediately after the field is defined, when the Manage Database dialog box is closed. By default, [color:blue]calculations that include a related field, summary field, global field, or a reference to another unstored calculation are unstored; all other calculations are stored."

Performance Optimization of FileMaker Pro 7, FileMaker Pro 8 and FileMaker Pro 8.5 Databases

Or maybe your server needs a tuneup. Be sure to stop FileMaker Server before you do any disk optimizing. And if you have virus checking, tell it to ignore the live FileMaker files.

More info: FileMaker Server Best Practices