diff --git a/ircd/db.cc b/ircd/db.cc
index dc8b8d774..776aff5ec 100644
--- a/ircd/db.cc
+++ b/ircd/db.cc
@@ -2168,8 +2168,15 @@ ircd::db::database::column::column(database &d,
 	table_opts.pin_top_level_index_and_filter = false;
 	table_opts.pin_l0_filter_and_index_blocks_in_cache = false;
 	table_opts.partition_filters = true;
+
+	// Delta encoding is always used (option ignored) for table
+	// format_version >= 4 unless block_align=true.
 	table_opts.use_delta_encoding = false;
 
+	// Block alignment doesn't work if compression is enabled for this
+	// column. If not, we want block alignment for direct IO.
+	table_opts.block_align = this->options.compression == rocksdb::kNoCompression;
+
 	// Determine whether the index for this column should be compressed.
 	const bool is_string_index(this->descriptor->type.first == typeid(string_view));
 	const bool is_compression(this->options.compression != rocksdb::kNoCompression);
@@ -2184,10 +2191,6 @@ ircd::db::database::column::column(database &d,
 	//table_opts.data_block_index_type = rocksdb::BlockBasedTableOptions::kDataBlockBinaryAndHash;
 	//table_opts.data_block_hash_table_util_ratio = 0.75;
 
-	// Block alignment doesn't work if compression is enabled for this
-	// column. If not, we want block alignment for direct IO.
-	table_opts.block_align = this->options.compression == rocksdb::kNoCompression;
-
 	// Setup the cache for assets.
 	const auto &cache_size(this->descriptor->cache_size);
 	if(cache_size != 0)