Isn't one search = to one connection?
Shouldn't it be able to more or less run in the background without bringing down the rest of the forums?
In simple terms it has to lock the table in order to do the query. When the table is locked then other queries on that table will stack up until it's done.
There are a few solutions that some sites will do such as having a slave database that is strictly just for searches. So when a search is done it's done on the slave and won't block other queries.
There are a few things we're going to try and do to help with search speed, but it's always a sticking point especially when it's done on all posts in the database.
