Re: [GENERAL] Autovacuum Improvements

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: "Jim C. Nasby" <jim@nasby.net>, Ron Mayer <rm_pg@cheapcomplexdevices.com>, Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2007-01-26T04:39:00Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
> > Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> >> If we extended relations by more than one page at a time we'd probably
> >> have a better shot at the blocks on disk being contiguous and all read
> >> at the same time by the OS.
> 
> > Actually, there is evidence that adding only a single page to the end
> > causes a lot of contention for that last page, and that adding a few
> > might be better.
> 
> Evidence where?  The code is designed so that the last page *isn't*
> shared --- go read the comments in hio.c sometime.

I was talking about the last page of a table, where INSERTs all cluster
on that last page and cause lots of page locking.  hio.c does look like
it avoids that problem.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian   bruce@momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB    http://www.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +