Created by gistup (http://anastrozol.wordpress.com/category/gistup/)

query.php

<?php
/*
 DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `md5`;
CREATE TABLE `md5` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `key` varchar(5) NOT NULL,
  `bar` varchar(32) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
 */
require_once("idiorm.php");
ORM::configure('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test');
ORM::configure('username', 'user');
ORM::configure('password', 'user');
$db = ORM::get_db();

$data=array();
for($i=0;$i<=1000;$i++){
	$key=base_convert($i, 10,36);
	$data[]=array('key'=>$i,'bar'=>$i);
};
echo "Preparing data done";
$row=ORM::for_table('md5')->create()->save_multi($data);

query2.php

<?php
/*
 DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `md5`;
CREATE TABLE `md5` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `key` varchar(5) NOT NULL,
  `bar` varchar(32) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
 */
require_once("idiorm.php");
ORM::configure('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=test');
ORM::configure('username', 'user');
ORM::configure('password', 'user');
$db = ORM::get_db();

for($i=0;$i<=1000;$i++){
	$person=ORM::for_table('md5')->create();
	$person->key = base_convert($i,10,36);
	$person->bar = $i;
	$person->save();
};

Data being submitted is different. In line 19 of query.php perhaps you mean:

    $data[]=array('key'=>$key,'bar'=>$i);    // value for 'key' changed from original

There are probably a handful of ways to speed up the first one, if it were important. One that comes to mind first is doing the for_table outside the loop, then cloning it. Using Idiorm's pending raw_execute() method might be even faster than both of the methods shown here.