Google is failing me, as I'm not using the right terms or there are common terms that are overlapping.
I did come across [link|http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.microsoft.com%2Fbarc%2FSortBenchmark%2F2005_SCS_Wyllie.pdf&ei=s55rRd_qOoP4wQKU_fXsCg&usg=__KVTl6eKX9PSAv6WEIfrhOc4-1mw=&sig2=JWT74X4KjUPj2bhxbg31LQ|this] (7 page .pdf) paper by Wyllie of IBM Almaden on sorting a 1 TB file in 437 seconds that was pretty interesing.
Cheers,
Scott.