On Jan 18, 2011, at 11:32 AM, Tom Lane wrote: > Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> writes: >> On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Jim Nasby <j...@nasby.net> wrote: >>> On Jan 17, 2011, at 8:11 PM, Robert Haas wrote: >> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 7:56 PM, Jim Nasby <j...@nasby.net> wrote: >>>> - Forks are very possibly a more efficient way to deal with TOAST than >>>> having separate tables. There's a fair amount of overhead we pay for the >>>> current setup. >> >> That seems like an interesting idea, but I actually don't see why it >> would be any more efficient, and it seems like you'd end up >> reinventing things like vacuum and free space map management. >>> >>> The FSM would take some effort, but I don't think vacuum would be that hard >>> to deal with; you'd just have to free up the space in any referenced toast >>> forks at the same time that you vacuumed the heap. > >> How's that different from what vacuum does on a TOAST table now? > > Even more to the point: Jim hasn't provided one single reason to suppose > that this would be better-performing than the existing approach. It > looks to me like a large amount of work, and loss of on-disk > compatibility, for nothing at all except the sake of change.
Yes, I was only pointing out that there were possible uses for allowing a variable number of forks per relation if Tomas felt the need to go that direction. Changing toast would certainly require some very convincing arguments as to the benefits. -- Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect j...@nasby.net 512.569.9461 (cell) http://jim.nasby.net -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers