I agree I've worked on a number of high volume systems (million+ client interactions/minute), and you don't want a conventional database. Either use a custom da

I agree I've worked on a number of high volume systems (million+ client interactions/minute), and you don't want a conventional database. Either use a custom data-structure to keep it in memory (even if it's across multiple machines) or if you really want to use a database use one thats designed for that kind of usage (think tickerplant databases, kx, etc.) Figure out how to partition your data/algorithms so you can split it across multiple machines, don't concentrate on maximizing the performance of one machine, but rather of the "cloud" of machines.