Why is the exact same query impossible to execute on the network?

[nameuser321]

I'm trying to execute a query on an access file from inside an excel spreadsheet it's taking a ton of time to execute. Is there something that can be done or am I going to be forced to use sql server? Takes seconds to execute on the local drive.

[jonh]

Make sure your database tables are properly normalised and your fields are indexed and have datatypes only as big as needed.

[nameuser321]

Yes, I normalized all the fields, important fields are indexed and appropriate data types have been assigned. Impossible may have been an exageration, but a query that takes 5 seconds on my laptop (database is on the same drive), takes 5 minutes across the network. I was wondering why that was and whether or not switching to SQL server would improve that speed and by how much (thinking that query would be executed on server and only resulting records would be sent accross network).

[jonh]

Sounds like your network is just very slow, in which case a database server probably would be quicker but it's not possible to say by how much.