Re: Single-file DBs WAS: Need concrete 'Why Postgres

"Andrew Dunstan" <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> writes:
> Is anyone seriously suggesting that postgres should support either raw
> devices or use some sort of virtual file system? If not, this whole
> discussion is way off topic.

I have zero interest in actually doing it. However, it'd be nice if the
existing "storage manager" API were clean enough that our response to
this type of question could be "sure, go implement it, and when you're
done let us know what performance improvement you see". We've allowed
the smgr API to degenerate over the years. CREATE/DROP DATABASE both
bypass it, and the support for alternate database locations messes up
the API pretty thoroughly (not that there's anything clean about that
feature at all), and I think there are some other issues with specific
commands bypassing the smgr abstractions.

I think it would be reasonable to fix this as part of the "tablespaces"
work that people keep wanting to do.

regards, tom lane