The SORT verb often makes use of temporary files. By default these files are stored in the current directory. You can specify an alternate directory to hold the sort files by setting the configuration variable SORT_DIR to the desired directory. This value is treated as a prefix, so any trailing directory syntax (such as /) is required. You can improve the performance of the SORT verb by placing the temporary files on a fast device. Care should be taken, however, that the device has enough free space to hold twice the size of the data to be sorted.