Re: checkpoints are duplicated even while the system is idle

From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
Cc: Simon Riggs <simon(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: checkpoints are duplicated even while the system is idle
Date: 2011-10-06 16:54:53
Message-ID: CA+TgmoYANByJr-ogfu9otHfk-BQR8zmqgY_8afohBOLDzgxczw@mail.gmail.com
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On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> I'm not entirely sure I understand the rationale, though.  I mean, if
>> very little has happened since the last checkpoint, then the
>> checkpoint will be very cheap.  In the totally degenerate case Fujii
>> Masao is reporting, where absolutely nothing has happened, it should
>> be basically free.  We'll loop through a whole bunch of things, decide
>> there's nothing to fsync, and call it a day.
>
> I think the point is that a totally idle database should not continue to
> emit WAL, not even at a slow rate.  There are also power-consumption
> objections to allowing the checkpoint process to fire up to no purpose.

Hmm, OK. I still think it's a little funny to say that
checkpoint_timeout will force a checkpoint every N minutes except when
it doesn't, but maybe there's no real harm in that as long as we
document it properly.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

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