Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.208.211]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7818A633BEC for ; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:52:32 -0300 (ADT) Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.208.211]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 23597-03 for ; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:52:25 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from skynet.simkin.ca (skynet.simkin.ca [72.51.27.117]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 393DE632B04 for ; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:52:28 -0300 (ADT) Received: from charon.medialogik.com (unknown [10.10.2.229]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by skynet.simkin.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 843574A57 for ; Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:52:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan Hodgson Organization: Simkin Network Consulting To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: Re: High CPU Utilization Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:52:22 -0700 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.10 References: <8609D1C0-3ECD-4A4F-B9C6-1FC8496EDC7A@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <8609D1C0-3ECD-4A4F-B9C6-1FC8496EDC7A@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200903161252.22202@hal.medialogik.com> X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.079 tagged_above=0 required=5 tests=AWL=0.079 X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 200903/218 X-Sequence-Number: 33140 On Monday 16 March 2009, Joe Uhl wrote: > Right now (not under peak load) this server is running at 68% CPU > utilization and its SATA raid 10 is doing about 2MB/s writes and 11MB/ > s reads. When I run dd I can hit 200+MB/s writes and 230+ MB/s reads, > so we are barely using the available IO. Further when I run dd the > CPU utilization of that process only approaches 20%-30% of one core. What does vmstat say when it's slow? The output of "vmstat 1 30" would be=20 informative.=20 note: dd is sequential I/O. Normal database usage is random I/O.=20 =2D-=20 Even a sixth-grader can figure out that you can=E2=80=99t borrow money to p= ay off=20 your debt