Received: from localhost (uranus.hub.org [200.46.204.60]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 427189FA2E0 for ; Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:59:21 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.60]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 63007-04 for ; Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:59:19 -0400 (AST) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey- Received: from wolff.to (wolff.to [66.93.197.194]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with SMTP id D8B329F9998 for ; Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:59:18 -0400 (AST) Received: (qmail 11762 invoked by uid 500); 20 Nov 2006 01:59:52 -0000 Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:59:52 -0600 From: Bruno Wolff III To: "Craig A. James" Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org, mstone+postgres@mathom.us Subject: Re: Postgres server crash Message-ID: <20061120015952.GA10935@wolff.to> Mail-Followup-To: Bruno Wolff III , "Craig A. James" , pgsql-performance@postgresql.org, mstone+postgres@mathom.us References: <19583.1163700841@sss.pgh.pa.us> <20061119184105.GC2366@mathom.us> <4560D6B1.8060306@modgraph-usa.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4560D6B1.8060306@modgraph-usa.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200611/167 X-Sequence-Number: 21937 On Sun, Nov 19, 2006 at 14:12:01 -0800, "Craig A. James" wrote: > > These were mostly scientific and graphical apps where reliability took a > back seat to performance and to program complexity. They would allocate > 100's of GB of swap space rather than taking the time to design proper data > structures. If the program crashed every week or two, no big deal -- just > run it again. Overallocating memory is a valuable technique for such > applications. I don't think the above applies generally. Programmers need to be aware of the working set of CPU bound apps. If the program is constantly paging, the performance is going to be abysmal.