Search Theory question

Hi,

I am being told that in Notes the search starts at the top of the view then works it’s way down to find the target document while in a relational database if some one is looking for a customer’s name starting with D, it will go directly to the top of the D rows and then work it’s way down to the target record. Is this correct? If yes then is there a way to do the search same way in Notes to speed up searches. We have a customers’ database and according to the users the search takes too long in it. Some people are suggesting converting it to a relational database because supposedly searches are faster in the relational databases.

Thanks,

Armand