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commit    e51160fa0bab7203e37094fbb0349b0c324b09e7
Author:   John Naylor <john.naylor@postgresql.org>
Date:     Tue Aug 20 03:02:34 2024 +0000
First released in: 18.0, 12.21, 13.17, 14.14, 15.9, 16.5, 17.0

    Document limit on the number of out-of-line values per table
    
    Document the hard limit stemming from the size of an OID, and also
    mention the perfomance impact that occurs before the hard limit
    is reached.
    
    Jakub Wartak and Robert Haas
    Backpatch to all supported versions
    
    Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAKZiRmwWhp2yxjqJLwbBjHdfbJBcUmmKMNAZyBjjtpgM9AMatQ%40mail.gmail.com


 doc/src/sgml/limits.sgml | 11 +++++++++++
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/limits.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/limits.sgml
index c549447013f..f26f4466719 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/limits.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/limits.sgml
@@ -135,4 +135,15 @@
   created tuples are internally marked as null in the tuple's null bitmap, the
   null bitmap also occupies space.
  </para>
+
+ <para>
+  Each table can store a theoretical maximum of 2^32 out-of-line values; see
+  <xref linkend="storage-toast" /> for a detailed discussion of out-of-line
+  storage. This limit arises from the use of a 32-bit OID to identify each
+  such value. The practical limit is significantly less than the theoretical
+  limit, because as the OID space fills up, finding an OID that is still free
+  can become expensive, in turn slowing down INSERT/UPDATE statements.
+  Typically, this is only an issue for tables containing many terabytes
+  of data; partitioning is a possible workaround.
+ </para>
 </appendix>


[parent: be73e7008558]