Received: from maia.hub.org (unknown [200.46.204.183]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8CFF6325AF for ; Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:24:05 -0300 (ADT) Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86]) by maia.hub.org (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.183]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 89149-07 for ; Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:23:55 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D716632538 for ; Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:23:55 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id o3GFNqmi009739; Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:23:52 -0400 (EDT) To: Josh Kupershmidt cc: Chris , pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: Re: stats collector suddenly causing lots of IO In-reply-to: References: <20100413170105.GA29571@chris-laptop.a2hosting.com> <25952.1271370711@sss.pgh.pa.us> Comments: In-reply-to Josh Kupershmidt message dated "Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:39:07 -0400" Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:23:52 -0400 Message-ID: <9738.1271431432@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.91 tagged_above=-10 required=5 tests=BAYES_00=-1.9, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01 X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 201004/206 X-Sequence-Number: 38456 Josh Kupershmidt writes: > I'm not sure whether this is related to the stats collector problems > on this machine, but I noticed alarming table bloat in the catalog > tables pg_attribute, pg_attrdef, pg_depend, and pg_type. Hmm. That makes me wonder if autovacuum is functioning properly at all. What does pg_stat_all_tables show for the last vacuum and analyze times of those tables? Try something like select relname,n_live_tup,n_dead_tup,last_vacuum,last_autovacuum,last_analyze,last_autoanalyze from pg_stat_all_tables where schemaname = 'pg_catalog' order by 1; regards, tom lane