I don't think that any individual query is slow so much as the number of queries.
Then shaving off a little time on each one can add up to a lot.
- Are you using placeholders?
- Have you considered stored procedures, possibly combining multiple operations into single?
- Are your data properly indexed?
- Are your tables unnecessarily large (can old data be deleted)?
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No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]