Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.183]) by developer.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D4942E0031 for ; Fri, 2 May 2008 16:24:48 -0300 (ADT) Received: from developer.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.183]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 24567-06 for ; Fri, 2 May 2008 16:24:39 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: domain auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.5 Received: from el-out-1112.google.com (el-out-1112.google.com [209.85.162.177]) by developer.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B300D2E002D for ; Fri, 2 May 2008 16:24:41 -0300 (ADT) Received: by el-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id j27so663878elf.23 for ; Fri, 02 May 2008 12:24:40 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:from:to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:mime-version:subject:date:x-mailer; bh=YR4U6/qjRYKvtehHjzFClxdRkfSm8q6fvykT18P5s2s=; b=Mj76tPGDz+rrNRB9uZEBQyVmYpGJKacqh6XwbI5Mt6Pu5g9g34ADtkc7OhTA7ZgNlhmMwNzXQQsyWq0blaD0cy6aGJcn0al1mWaS/+kfmDnGiSHNq96AnuYiCutKyZwwz2/43H9PSxVN47bArmTpHhdDZBMPLKE2XwKiQwg+rns= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:from:to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:mime-version:subject:date:x-mailer; b=mfaNHobWlSizMJmYRPALB2dDJ5W9y+ALsbl12Qp0Z80YD71w949vvySwVFpUeZuxhR06sZ6XA4mFIz+IGqWw5vgOLap3c7jRBaJ9vH6HLKs2IMvLtmSM2n4OJv0F5i7SoKdig4BbLUyVziwn8ntOGi3Mb8zE+oL84FzvHt5YKQE= Received: by 10.114.103.1 with SMTP id a1mr3333347wac.190.1209756280111; Fri, 02 May 2008 12:24:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.1.100? ( [24.19.22.42]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id y25sm6526074pod.8.2008.05.02.12.24.38 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Fri, 02 May 2008 12:24:38 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: From: Alexy Khrabrov To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2) Subject: two memory-consuming postgres processes Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 12:24:35 -0700 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2) X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0 tagged_above=0 required=5 tests=none X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 200805/19 X-Sequence-Number: 29987 Greetings -- I have an UPDATE query updating a 100 million row table, and allocate enough memory via shared_buffers=1500MB. However, I see two processes in top, the UPDATE process eating about 850 MB and the writer process eating about 750 MB. The box starts paging. Why is there the writer taking almost as much space as the UPDATE, and how can I shrink it? Cheers, Alexy