To: Donald Courtney <Donald.Courtney@Sun.COM>
Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org, Frank Wiles <frank@wiles.org>,
	gokulnathbabu manoharan <gokulnathbabu@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Caching by Postgres 
In-reply-to: <430B6DE3.6040109@sun.com> 
References: <20050823171045.12112.qmail@web51309.mail.yahoo.com>
	<20050823124323.710a9dd3.frank@wiles.org>
	<430B6DE3.6040109@sun.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Donald Courtney <Donald.Courtney@Sun.COM>
	message dated "Tue, 23 Aug 2005 14:41:39 -0400"
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:23:43 -0400
Message-ID: <4587.1124825023@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Donald Courtney <Donald.Courtney@Sun.COM> writes:
> I am not alone in having the *expectation* that a database should have
> some cache size parameter and the option to skip the file system.  If
> I use oracle, sybase, mysql and maxdb they all have the ability to
> size a data cache and move to 64 bits.

And you're not alone in holding that opinion despite having no shred
of evidence that it's worthwhile expanding the cache that far.

However, since we've gotten tired of hearing this FUD over and over,
8.1 will have the ability to set shared_buffers as high as you want.
I expect next we'll be hearing from people complaining that they
set shared_buffers to use all of RAM and performance went into the
tank ...

			regards, tom lane