Received: from localhost (maia-5.hub.org [200.46.204.182]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9736F9FA6B3 for ; Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:06:14 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.182]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 87735-02 for ; Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:06:04 -0400 (AST) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.4 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 121C99F9F46 for ; Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:06:09 -0400 (AST) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id kAQH66EK019250; Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:06:06 -0500 (EST) To: "Craig A. James" cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: Re: When to vacuum a table? In-reply-to: <4569C04C.8090503@modgraph-usa.com> References: <1164540257.7902.0.camel@panoramix> <20061126131147.GA4089@uio.no> <195C9B6B-2018-474C-AA80-239A8CEA37E9@gmail.com> <4569C04C.8090503@modgraph-usa.com> Comments: In-reply-to "Craig A. James" message dated "Sun, 26 Nov 2006 08:26:52 -0800" Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 12:06:06 -0500 Message-ID: <19249.1164560766@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200611/224 X-Sequence-Number: 21994 "Craig A. James" writes: > Is there no real-time garbage collection at all in Postgres? No. > And if so, is this because nobody has had time to implement garbage > collection, or for a more fundamental reason, or because VACUUM is > seen as sufficient? If you really want to know, read the mountains of (mostly) junk that have been written about replacing VACUUM in pgsql-hackers. The short answer (with apologies to Winston Churchill) is that VACUUM is the worst solution, except for all the others that have been suggested. regards, tom lane