Lionel Messi opened the scoring on 21 minutes before Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto'o added two more before half time, and then Henry and Eto'o both netted again in the final ten minutes to underline an emphatic victory.
In a move that set the tone for the match, Barcelona very nearly opened the scoring inside the first thirty seconds. Messi got on to a ball played out to him on the right flank, and fired in a cross to the waiting - and unmarked - Henry, whose shot sent Aranzubia the wrong way, but clipped the keeper's trailing feet and flew to safety.
Barcelona charged ceaselessly from then on, coming at their visitors with successive attacks that continually threatened to open up the defence. This rampant attacking was interrupted by only very rare counter-attacks from the visitors, most of which relied on speculative long balls and never really threatened.
The home side's breakthrough was just a matter of time, and it was Messi who provided it. The Argentine outpaced three defenders at full tilt before placing an incredible left-foot shot back across his own path, wrong-footing the keeper by five or six yards and clipping in off the right-hand post.
It took just six minutes for Barca to double their lead, with right-back Dani Alves - who was in blistering form throughout - providing the inch-perfect cross that Henry finished off with a trademark bullet header.
Fifteen minutes after that Eto'o turned the match into a rout as he was on-hand to mop up Seydou Keita's diving header. The Cameroon striker thumped the ball home from three yards, dismaying the visitors but making up for an earlier chance that he had squandered.
The second half was a far more sedate affair, with Barcelona relaxing in the knowledge that the game was won and Deportivo manfully trying to get back in to things.
Yet the visitors just never had the firepower to create a chance, and only when Barcelona came back to life in the final quarter of an hour did it look as if the scoreline would change.
First, substitute Iniesta hit a brilliant volley from Henry's cross that drew the best save of the match from Aranzubia on 72 minutes.
Then, on 83 minutes, Henry scored the fourth after Xavi rounded the keeper and passed for the Frenchman to fire into the unguarded net.
With four minutes left Carlos Puyol was through on Aranzubia and about to make it five, but was downed by the keeper to elicit a red card and a penalty kick. Eto'o stepped up to score an audacious spot kick that made it 5-0 and completed Deportivo's miserable visit to the Nou Camp with a scoreline that, if anything, still flattered the visitors.
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