Re: autovacuum not prioritising for-wraparound tables

On 1/30/13 3:28 PM, Kevin Grittner wrote:
> Jim Nasby <jim(at)nasby(dot)net> wrote:

>> then the *ideal* time to start a freeze vacuum on a table is so
>> that the vacuum would end *exactly* as we were about to hit XID
>> wrap.
>
> For a tuple which you know is going to survive long enough to be
> frozen, the *ideal* time to freeze a tuple, from a performance
> standpoint, is when the tuple is written, to eliminate a separate
> WAL-log operation. The *next best* time to freeze is when the hint
> bits are set, to avoid a separate page write. If you are doing
> differential backups, the *third best* time to freeze is before the
> first differential backup of the tuple, to avoid a separate backup
> after the freeze. And so on.

Yeah, I hadn't considered that aspect, but I think that's a separate
discussion. I agree that there are many cases where we would benefit
from freezing early, and those should all help reduce the impact of
XID-wrap induced freezing.

Even if we do introduce "up-front" freezing, we still need to deal with
all the other cases though, which in the worst case means avoiding the
XID wrap. I believe that particular case (as well as the whole autovac
priority question) would be best served by looking at 1st and 2nd order
derivatives.