Why is my view making my disk churn? (iostat)

I have this view which combines a few tables. It's wide-ish, 60 rows,
almost all columns integer. It joins five tables, all using primary keys.
The explain output is as follows:

Nested Loop Left Join (cost=0.01..92.38 rows=4 width=222) (actual
time=0.291..0.711 rows=4 loops=1)
Join Filter: ((mytable.pid = info.pid) AND (mytable.year = info.year))
-> Nested Loop Left Join (cost=0.01..81.93 rows=4 width=218) (actual
time=0.110..0.221 rows=4 loops=1)
Join Filter: ((mytable.pid = pos.pid) AND (mytable.year = pos.year))
-> Nested Loop Left Join (cost=0.01..73.55 rows=4 width=214)
(actual time=0.092..0.197 rows=4 loops=1)
Join Filter: ((mytable.year = ipf.year) AND (mytable.pid =
ipf.pid) AND ((mytable.sport_code)::text = (ipf.sport_code)::text))
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.01..63.44 rows=4 width=202) (actual
time=0.063..0.143 rows=4 loops=1)
-> Index Scan using idx_persons_id on _persons player
(cost=0.00..8.28 rows=1 width=23) (actual time=0.016..0.017 rows=1 loops=1)
Index Cond: (mlbam_id = 461416)
-> Nested Loop Left Join (cost=0.01..55.12 rows=4
width=183) (actual time=0.045..0.122 rows=4 loops=1)
-> Index Scan using mytable.pkey on mytable.
(cost=0.00..21.92 rows=4 width=172) (actual time=0.027..0.071 rows=4
loops=1)
Index Cond: ((year = 2012) AND .pid =
461416) AND (gtype = 'R'::bpchar) AND (split = 'all'::text))
-> Index Scan using teams_history_pkey on
teams_history ts (cost=0.01..8.28 rows=1 width=20) (actual
time=0.007..0.007 rows=0 loops=4)
Index Cond: ((team_id = mytable.team_id)
AND (year = textin(int4out(mytable.year))))
-> Materialize (cost=0.00..10.03 rows=1 width=25) (actual
time=0.006..0.009 rows=3 loops=4)
-> Index Scan using ipf_pkey on ipf ipf
(cost=0.00..10.03 rows=1 width=25) (actual time=0.019..0.027 rows=3
loops=1)
Index Cond: ((year = 2012) AND .pid = 461416) AND
((factor_type)::text = 'run'::text) AND ((player_type)::text =
'hitter'::text))
-> Materialize (cost=0.00..8.32 rows=1 width=12) (actual
time=0.004..0.005 rows=1 loops=4)
-> Index Scan using primary_pos_pkey1 on pos
(cost=0.00..8.31 rows=1 width=12) (actual time=0.012..0.012 rows=1 loops=1)
Index Cond: (.pid = 461416) AND (year = 2012))
-> Materialize (cost=0.00..8.30 rows=1 width=12) (actual
time=0.003..0.004 rows=1 loops=4)
-> Index Scan using info_pkey on info (cost=0.00..8.30 rows=1
width=12) (actual time=0.011..0.013 rows=1 loops=1)
Index Cond: (.pid = 461416) AND (year = 2012))
Total runtime: 1.350 ms

When I run this query, the disk thrashes. It's on a 4-disk RAID5 array. I
call it for some 6,000 values of pid, like: SELECT * FROM myview WHERE pid
= 1, then 2, etc. The iostat outputs shows util% getting close to 100%
quickly:

cciss/c0d1 0.00 0.00 152.00 0.00 2784.00 0.00 18.32
0.97 6.38 6.18 94.00
cciss/c0d1 0.00 0.00 135.00 0.00 2688.00 0.00 19.91
0.92 6.96 6.22 84.00
cciss/c0d1 0.00 0.00 131.00 0.00 2928.00 0.00 22.35
0.75 5.80 5.42 71.00

It hits 100% easily if other things are going on.

Is there anything I can do here? I suppose I could put my DB on a RAID0
array and that might help, but it seems drastic. This is not a high load
environment and given that the view combines all of the tables via primary
keys, I feel like this should be quicker. Is there some clue in the EXPLAIN
output I am missing?

The throttling of the disk causes other processes to queue up.

Thanks!

--
Wells Oliver
wellsoliver(at)gmail(dot)com