diff --git a/field.go b/field.go
index dee36745d..5f147d735 100644
--- a/field.go
+++ b/field.go
@@ -935,7 +935,7 @@ func (f *Field) RowTime(tx Tx, rowID uint64, time time.Time, quantum string) (*R
 	if !TimeQuantum(quantum).Valid() {
 		return nil, ErrInvalidTimeQuantum
 	}
-	viewname := viewsByTime(viewStandard, time, TimeQuantum(quantum[len(quantum)-1:]))[0]
+	viewname := viewByTimeUnit(viewStandard, time, rune(quantum[len(quantum)-1]))
 	view := f.view(viewname)
 	if view == nil {
 		return nil, errors.Errorf("view with quantum %v not found.", quantum)
@@ -1492,20 +1492,38 @@ func (f *Field) Import(qcx *Qcx, rowIDs, columnIDs []uint64, timestamps []int64,
 	fieldType := f.Type()
 
 	// Split import data by fragment.
-	views := make(map[string]int)
-	var allData []importData
-	see := func(name string, columnID uint64, rowID uint64) {
+	views := make(map[string]*importData)
+	var timeStringBuf []byte
+	var timeViews [][]byte
+	if len(q) > 0 {
+		// We're supporting time quantums, so we need to store bits in a
+		// number of views for every entry with a timestamp. We want to compute
+		// time quantum view names for whatever combination of YMDH views
+		// we have. But we don't want to allocate four strings per entry, or
+		// recompute and recreate the entire string. We know that only the
+		// YYYYMMDDHH part of the string changes over time.
+		timeStringBuf = make([]byte, len(viewStandard) + 11)
+		copy(timeStringBuf, []byte(viewStandard))
+		copy(timeStringBuf[len(viewStandard):], []byte("_YYYYMMDDHH"))
+		// Now we have a buffer that contains
+		// `standard_YYYYMMDDHH`. We also need storage space to hold several
+		// slice headers, one per entry in q. These will hold the view names
+		// corresponding to each letter in q.
+		timeViews = make([][]byte, len(q))
+	}
+	// This helper function records that a given column/row pair is relevant
+	// to a specific view. We use a map lookup for the strings, but do the
+	// actual operations using a slice so we're only writing each map entry
+	// once, not once on every update.
+	see := func(name []byte, columnID uint64, rowID uint64) {
 		var ok bool
-		var idx int
-		if idx, ok = views[name]; !ok {
-			allData = append(allData, importData{})
-			idx = len(allData)
-			views[name] = idx
+		var data *importData
+		if data, ok = views[string(name)]; !ok {
+			data = &importData{}
+			views[string(name)] = data
 		}
-		data := allData[idx]
 		data.RowIDs = append(data.RowIDs, rowID)
 		data.ColumnIDs = append(data.ColumnIDs, columnID)
-		allData[idx] = data
 	}
 	for i := range rowIDs {
 		rowID, columnID := rowIDs[i], columnIDs[i]
@@ -1520,13 +1538,15 @@ func (f *Field) Import(qcx *Qcx, rowIDs, columnIDs []uint64, timestamps []int64,
 		// attach bit to standard view unless we have a timestamp and
 		// have the NoStandardView option set
 		if !hasTime || !f.options.NoStandardView {
-			see(viewStandard, columnID, rowID)
+			see([]byte(viewStandard), columnID, rowID)
 		}
 		if hasTime {
-			// attach bit to all the views for this timestamp
-			views := viewsByTime(viewStandard, time.Unix(0, timestamps[i]).UTC(), q)
-			for _, view := range views {
-				see(view, columnID, rowID)
+			// attach bit to all the views for this timestamp. note that the
+			// `timeViews` slice gets resliced and reused by this process, so
+			// we don't have to allocate millions of tiny slices of slice headers.
+			timeViews = viewsByTimeInto(timeStringBuf, timeViews, time.Unix(0, timestamps[i]).UTC(), q)
+			for _, v := range timeViews {
+				see(v, columnID, rowID)
 			}
 		}
 	}
@@ -1536,8 +1556,7 @@ func (f *Field) Import(qcx *Qcx, rowIDs, columnIDs []uint64, timestamps []int64,
 	}
 	var err1 error
 	defer finisher(&err1)
-	for viewName, idx := range views {
-		data := allData[idx]
+	for viewName, data := range views {
 		view, err := f.createViewIfNotExists(viewName)
 		if err != nil {
 			return errors.Wrapf(err, "creating view %s", viewName)
diff --git a/time.go b/time.go
index a35ba7dd4..a17d37726 100644
--- a/time.go
+++ b/time.go
@@ -89,15 +89,69 @@ func viewByTimeUnit(name string, t time.Time, unit rune) string {
 	}
 }
 
+// YYYYMMDDHH lengths. Note that this is a []int, not a map[byte]int, so
+// the lookups can be cheaper.
+var lengthsByQuantum = []int{
+	'Y': 4,
+	'M': 6,
+	'D': 8,
+	'H': 10,
+}
+
+// viewsByTimeInto computes the list of views for a given time. It expects
+// to be given an initial buffer of the form `name_YYYYMMDDHH`, and a slice
+// of []bytes. This allows us to reuse the buffer for all the sub-buffers,
+// and also to reuse the slice of slices, to eliminate all those allocations.
+// This might seem crazy, but even including the JSON parsing and all the
+// disk activity, the straightforward viewsByTime implementation was 25%
+// of runtime in an ingest test.
+func viewsByTimeInto(fullBuf []byte, into [][]byte, t time.Time, q TimeQuantum) [][]byte {
+	l := len(fullBuf) - 10
+	date := fullBuf[l : l+10]
+	y, m, d := t.Date()
+	h := t.Hour()
+	// Did you know that Sprintf, Printf, and other things like that all
+	// do allocations, and that doing allocations in a tight loop like this
+	// is stunningly expensive? viewsByTime was 25% of an ingest test's
+	// total CPU, not counting the garbage collector overhead. This is about
+	// 3%. No, I'm not totally sure that justifies it.
+	if y < 1000 {
+		ys := fmt.Sprintf("%04d", y)
+		copy(date[0:4], []byte(ys))
+	} else if y >= 10000 {
+		// This is probably a bad answer but there isn't really a
+		// good answer.
+		ys := fmt.Sprintf("%04d", y%1000)
+		copy(date[0:4], []byte(ys))
+	} else {
+		strconv.AppendInt(date[:0], int64(y), 10)
+	}
+	date[4] = '0' + byte(m/10)
+	date[5] = '0' + byte(m%10)
+	date[6] = '0' + byte(d/10)
+	date[7] = '0' + byte(d%10)
+	date[8] = '0' + byte(h/10)
+	date[9] = '0' + byte(h%10)
+	into = into[:0]
+	for _, unit := range q {
+		if int(unit) < len(lengthsByQuantum) && lengthsByQuantum[unit] != 0 {
+			into = append(into, fullBuf[:l+lengthsByQuantum[unit]])
+		}
+	}
+	return into
+}
+
 // viewsByTime returns a list of views for a given timestamp.
 func viewsByTime(name string, t time.Time, q TimeQuantum) []string { // nolint: unparam
+	y, m, d := t.Date()
+	h := t.Hour()
+	full := fmt.Sprintf("%s_%04d%02d%02d%02d", name, y, m, d, h)
+	l := len(name) + 1
 	a := make([]string, 0, len(q))
 	for _, unit := range q {
-		view := viewByTimeUnit(name, t, unit)
-		if view == "" {
-			continue
+		if int(unit) < len(lengthsByQuantum) && lengthsByQuantum[unit] != 0 {
+			a = append(a, full[:l+lengthsByQuantum[unit]])
 		}
-		a = append(a, view)
 	}
 	return a
 }
diff --git a/time_internal_test.go b/time_internal_test.go
index 8356d5dbe..2627ec65d 100644
--- a/time_internal_test.go
+++ b/time_internal_test.go
@@ -83,6 +83,38 @@ func TestViewsByTime(t *testing.T) {
 	})
 }
 
+func TestViewsByTimeInto(t *testing.T) {
+	ts := time.Date(2000, time.January, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, time.UTC)
+	s := []byte("F_YYYYMMDDHH")
+	var timeViews [][]byte
+
+	t.Run("YMDH", func(t *testing.T) {
+		a := viewsByTime("F", ts, mustParseTimeQuantum("YMDH"))
+		b := viewsByTimeInto(s, timeViews, ts, mustParseTimeQuantum("YMDH"))
+		if len(a) != len(b) {
+			t.Fatalf("mismatch: viewsByTime: %q, viewsByTimeInto: %q", a, b)
+		}
+		for i := range a {
+			if a[i] != string(b[i]) {
+				t.Fatalf("mismatch: viewsByTime: %q, viewsByTimeInto: %q", a, b)
+			}
+		}
+	})
+
+	t.Run("D", func(t *testing.T) {
+		a := viewsByTime("F", ts, mustParseTimeQuantum("D"))
+		b := viewsByTimeInto(s, timeViews, ts, mustParseTimeQuantum("D"))
+		if len(a) != len(b) {
+			t.Fatalf("mismatch: viewsByTime: %q, viewsByTimeInto: %q", a, b)
+		}
+		for i := range a {
+			if a[i] != string(b[i]) {
+				t.Fatalf("mismatch: viewsByTime: %q, viewsByTimeInto: %q", a, b)
+			}
+		}
+	})
+}
+
 // Ensure sets of fields can be returned for a given time range.
 func TestViewsByTimeRange(t *testing.T) {
 	t.Run("Y", func(t *testing.T) {