Methods and apparatus, including computer systems and program products, for executing a query on a subset of data, for example, to facilitate a fast search with a very large result set. In one general aspect, a method of executing a query includes receiving a query for execution on data in the data repository; generating an estimate of a number of results of the query; defining a subset of data in the data repository; determining whether to execute the query on the subset of the data; executing the query on the subset of the data to generate a partial set of results if the query is to be executed on the subset of the data, otherwise executing the query on the data repository to generate a complete set of results; and providing query results.