Reducing Checkpoint Frequency

Reducing checkpoint frequency involves increasing the number of write-ahead log files created in data/pg_xlog. Each file is 16 megabytes, so this does affect disk usage. The default setup uses a minimum number of log files. To decrease checkpoint frequency, you need to increase this parameter:

checkpoint_segments = 3

The default value is three. Increase it until checkpoints happen only every few minutes. Another log message that may appear is:

LOG: XLogWrite: new log file created - consider increasing WAL_FILES

This message indicates that the wal_files parameter should be increased in postgresql.conf.