Database performance depends on the database being tuned. Some databases default to "developer setup" which does not use much of the RAM but is only for functional testing.
For a large bulk load into an existing store, dropping the indexes, doing the load and then recreating the indexes can be noticeably faster.
sdbconfig --drop sdbload file sdbconfig --index
For a large bulk load into an new store, just format it, and not create the indexes, do the load and then recreating the indexes can be noticeably faster.
sdbconfig --format sdbload --time file sdbconfig --index
