Received: from localhost (postgresql.org [64.49.215.8])
	by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3EAC6475C62
	for <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>; Sat,  3 Aug 2002 20:33:35 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from joeconway.com (unknown [63.210.180.150])
	by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87E20475BB4
	for <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>; Sat,  3 Aug 2002 20:33:34 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from [192.168.5.2] (account jconway HELO joeconway.com)
	by joeconway.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.5.9)
	with ESMTP-TLS id 1230784; Sat, 03 Aug 2002 17:25:38 -0700
Message-ID: <3D4C7634.5050105@joeconway.com>
Date: Sat, 03 Aug 2002 17:32:52 -0700
From: Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US;
	rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Kristian Eide <kreide@online.no>
Cc: Ken Corey <ken@kencorey.com>, pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: VACUUM not doing its job?
References: <035d01c23b2f$c5d49420$6b97f181@speed>
	<1028412884.28635.22.camel@kenlinux.bithub.org>
	<037901c23b3e$d542a140$6b97f181@speed>
	<3D4C60ED.7060402@joeconway.com>
	<038901c23b47$00d2d890$6b97f181@speed>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS new-20020517
X-Archive-Number: 200208/71
X-Sequence-Number: 8917

Kristian Eide wrote:
> Thanks, very helpful, although there does not seem to be much description of
> what the two free space map options in postgresql.conf actually do. Doing a
> VACUUM ANALYZE VERBOSE on my largest table gives me:
> 
> NOTICE:  Pages 43681: Changed 208, Empty 0; Tup 1921387: Vac 61669, Keep 0,
> UnUsed 1362341.
> 
> I will try to increase the 'max_fsm_pages' option from 10000 to 500000 and
> see if that helps.
> 

Note that you'll need to do a vacuum full *first* to recover the lost 
space, since the free space map is populated as the tuples are actually 
freed, I believe. After that you can adjust 'max_fsm_pages' and your 
vacuum frequency to achieve an equilibrium.

Joe