Using UNION instead of OR helps...

[James H]

I've taken out the OR and inserted a UNION (with some INNER JOINS that make no difference to performance). The query now completes in about 0.35secs...

RESET QUERY CACHE;
(
SELECT * FROM fw_items fwi
INNER JOIN fw_departments fwd ON fwd.id = fwi.department_id
INNER JOIN fw_aisles fwc ON fwc.id = fwi.category_id
WHERE MATCH(fwi.brand_name, fwi.product_name_and_size) AGAINST('BEER' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
)
union
(
SELECT * FROM fw_items fwi
INNER JOIN fw_departments fwd ON fwd.id = fwi.department_id
INNER JOIN fw_aisles fwc ON fwc.id = fwi.category_id
WHERE MATCH(fwc.name) AGAINST('BEER' IN BOOLEAN MODE)
)

...but performing these two SELECT statements individually takes 0.03secs + 0.12secs = 0.15secs. So how come it takes more than double this amount of time (i.e., 0.35secs) when they're together in a UNION like this? (The resultset is not that big - approx. 700 rows.)

Cheers,
James