Re: Working on huge RAM based datasets

On 7/9/2004 10:16 AM, Merlin Moncure wrote:

>> What is it about the buffer cache that makes it so unhappy being able
> to
>> hold everything? I don't want to be seen as a cache hit fascist, but
> isn't
>> it just better if the data is just *there*, available in the
> postmaster's
>> address space ready for each backend process to access it, rather than
>> expecting the Linux cache mechanism, optimised as it may be, to have
> to do
>> the caching?
>
> The disk cache on most operating systems is optimized. Plus, keeping
> shared buffers low gives you more room to bump up the sort memory, which
> will make your big queries run faster.

Plus, the situation will change dramatically with 7.5 where the disk
cache will have less information than the PG shared buffers, which will
become sequential scan resistant and will know that a block was pulled
in on behalf of vacuum and not because the regular database access
pattern required it.

Jan

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