Re: [HACKERS] Faster CREATE DATABASE by delaying fsync (was 8.4.1 ubuntu karmic slow createdb)

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de>
Cc: pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org, pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org, Michael Clemmons <glassresistor(at)gmail(dot)com>, Hannu Krosing <hannu(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, Scott Marlowe <scott(dot)marlowe(at)gmail(dot)com>
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Faster CREATE DATABASE by delaying fsync (was 8.4.1 ubuntu karmic slow createdb)
Date: 2009-12-28 23:06:28
Message-ID: 3454.1262041588@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> writes:
> This speeds up CREATE DATABASE from ~9 seconds to something around 0.8s on my
> laptop. Still slower than with fsync off (~0.25) but quite a worthy
> improvement.

I can't help wondering whether that's real or some kind of
platform-specific artifact. I get numbers more like 3.5s (fsync off)
vs 4.5s (fsync on) on a machine where I believe the disks aren't lying
about write-complete. It makes sense that an fsync at the end would be
a little bit faster, because it would give the kernel some additional
freedom in scheduling the required I/O, but it isn't cutting the total
I/O required at all. So I find it really hard to believe a 10x speedup.

regards, tom lane

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