Re: Horrible CREATE DATABASE Performance in High Sierra

On 2017-10-02 15:42:25 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> I wrote:
> > In short, therefore, APFS cannot cope with the way we're using msync().
>
> I experimented with this further by seeing whether the msync() code path
> is of any value on Sierra either. The answer seems to be "no": cloning
> a scale-1000 pgbench database takes about 17-18 seconds on my Sierra
> laptop using unmodified HEAD, but if I dike out the msync() logic then
> it takes 16-17 seconds. Both numbers jump around a little, but using
> msync is strictly worse.

Well, that's only measuring one type of workload. Could you run a normal
pgbench with -P1 or so for 2-3 checkpoint cycles and see how big the
latency differences are?

> I propose therefore that an appropriate fix is to unconditionally disable
> the msync code path on Darwin, as we have already done for Windows. When
> and if Apple changes their kernel so that this path is actually of some
> value, we can figure out how to detect whether to use it.

I'm inclined to think you're right.

This is a surprisingly massive regression for a new OS release - we're
not the only database that uses msync...

Greetings,

Andres Freund