Other factors may affect performance when using RAS. If the server was Windows SQL Server, either dbLib or ODBC could be used to access it. ODBC provides many features, but it also interrogates Windows SQL Server for its capabilities. This interrogation amounts to a significant time over a slow connection. dbLib does not interrogate the server and saves this time.
The data may be accessed as either a snapshot or a dynaset. A snapshot is a static copy of the data while the dynast is a dynamic copy. A dynaset must monitor the status of the tables that now creates additional traffic over the modem. Dynaset also returns pointers to the records that are pulled over the modem when needed. A snapshot gets the data as it is at the time of the query and puts data on C:\TEMP.