Received: from localhost (maia-3.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB2AD9FB44A for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2007 10:40:13 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 83563-04 for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2007 10:39:56 -0400 (AST) X-Greylist: delayed 00:42:51.980702 by SQLgrey-1.7.4 Received: from mail.net-domino.com (u15245314.onlinehome-server.com [74.208.11.96]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E64249FB5CB for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2007 10:40:06 -0400 (AST) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (u15245314.onlinehome-server.com [74.208.11.96]) by mail.net-domino.com (8.13.7/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l22DwnSK012800 for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2007 09:58:58 -0400 Message-ID: <45E82D2B.3030100@mochima.com> Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:56:59 -0500 From: Carlos Moreno User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 (X11/20070102) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: Re: strange performance regression between 7.4 and 8.1 References: <82slco6n9t.fsf@mid.bfk.de> In-Reply-To: <82slco6n9t.fsf@mid.bfk.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Added-Header: Sample_milter accepted message X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.136 tagged_above=0 required=5 tests=BAYES_50, FORGED_RCVD_HELO X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 200703/52 X-Sequence-Number: 23457 Florian Weimer wrote: > * Alex Deucher: > > >> I have noticed a strange performance regression and I'm at a loss as >> to what's happening. We have a fairly large database (~16 GB). >> > > Sorry for asking, but is this a typo? Do you mean 16 *TB* instead of > 16 *GB*? > > If it's really 16 GB, you should check if it's cheaper to buy more RAM > than to fiddle with the existing infrastructure. > This brings me to a related question: Do I need to specifically configure something to take advantage of such increase of RAM? In particular, is the amount of things that postgres can do with RAM limited by the amount of shared_buffers or some other parameter? Should shared_buffers be a fixed fraction of the total amount of physical RAM, or should it be the total amount minus half a gigabyte or so? As an example, if one upgrades a host from 1GB to 4GB, what would be the right thing to do in the configuration, assuming 8.1 or 8.2? (at least what would be the critical aspects?) Thanks, Carlos --