Re: work-mem

work-mem tells the size of physical memory only, virtual memory is
always there off course in case you run out of available memory.

I recommend you reading PostgreSQL internals for all this stuff:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/internals.html

--Imad
www.EnterpriseDB.com

On 1/29/07, Campbell, Lance <lance(at)uiuc(dot)edu> wrote:
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> I have been researching how to improve my overall performance of postgres.
> I am a little confused on the reasoning for how work-mem is used in the
> postgresql.conf file. The way I understand the documentation is you define
> with work-mem how much memory you want to allocate per search. Couldn't you
> run out of memory? This approach seems kind of odd to me. How do you tell
> the system not to allocate too much memory if you all of the sudden got hit
> with a heavier number of queries?
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> Thanks,
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> Lance Campbell
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> Project Manager/Software Architect
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> Web Services at Public Affairs
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> University of Illinois
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> 217.333.0382
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> http://webservices.uiuc.edu
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>