Re: Index Scans become Seq Scans after VACUUM ANALYSE

Curt Sampson wrote:
> On 23 Jun 2002, J. R. Nield wrote:
> 
> > So since we have all this buffering designed especially to meet our
> > needs, and since the OS buffering is in the way, can someone explain to
> > me why postgresql would ever open a file without the O_DSYNC flag if the
> > platform supports it?
> 
> It's more code, if there are platforms out there that don't support
> O_DYSNC. (We still have to keep the old fsync code.) On the other hand,
> O_DSYNC could save us a disk arm movement over fsync() because it
> appears to me that fsync is also going to force a metadata update, which
> means that the inode blocks have to be written as well.

Again, see postgresql.conf:

#wal_sync_method = fsync        # the default varies across platforms:
#                               # fsync, fdatasync, open_sync, or open_datasync

> 
> > Maybe fsync would be slower with two files, but I don't see how
> > fdatasync would be, and most platforms support that.
> 
> Because, if both files are on the same disk, you still have to move
> the disk arm from the cylinder at the current log file write point
> to the cylinder at the current ping-pong file write point. And then back
> again to the log file write point cylinder.
> 
> In the end, having a ping-pong file as well seems to me unnecessary
> complexity, especially when anyone interested in really good
> performance is going to buy a disk subsystem that guarantees no
> torn pages and thus will want to turn off the ping-pong file writes
> entirely, anyway.

Yes, I don't see writing to two files vs. one to be any win, especially
when we need to fsync both of them.  What I would really like is to
avoid the double I/O of writing to WAL and to the data file;  improving
that would be a huge win.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
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