Re: Dirty Buffer Writing [was Proposed LogWriter Scheme]

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Curtis Faith" <curtis@galtair.com>
Cc: "Bruce Momjian" <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>, "Pgsql-Hackers" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2002-10-08T14:50:58Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
"Curtis Faith" <curtis@galtair.com> writes:
> Do you not think this is a potential performance problem to be explored?

I agree that there's a problem if the kernel runs short of buffer space.
I am not sure whether that's really an issue in practical situations,
nor whether we can do much about it at the application level if it is
--- but by all means look for solutions if you are concerned.

(This is, BTW, one of the reasons for discouraging people from pushing
Postgres' shared buffer cache up to a large fraction of total RAM;
starving the kernel of disk buffers is just plain not a good idea.)

			regards, tom lane