[PERFORM] Performance Tuning and Disk Cache

2007-03-18 Thread Barry Moore
I have a very slow query that I'm trying to tune.  I think my  
performance tuning is being complicated by the system's page cache.


If a run the query after the system has been busy with other tasks  
for quite a long time then the query can take up to 8-10 minutes to  
complete.  If I then rerun the same query it will complete in a  
couple of seconds.


Does anyone know how I can repeatedly run the same query in the  
worst case scenario of no postgres data in the disk cache (e.g.,  
clear the page cache or force it to be ignored)?


Thanks for any help.

Barry


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Re: [PERFORM] Performance Tuning and Disk Cache

2007-03-18 Thread hubert depesz lubaczewski

On 3/18/07, Barry Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Does anyone know how I can repeatedly run the same query in the
worst case scenario of no postgres data in the disk cache (e.g.,
clear the page cache or force it to be ignored)?


try to disconnect from postgresql, reconnect, rerun the query.
if it doesn't help - you can try unmounting filesystem which contains
postgresql data, and remounting it again. of course with postgresql
shutdown.

depesz

--
http://www.depesz.com/ - nowy, lepszy depesz

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Re: [PERFORM] Performance Tuning and Disk Cache

2007-03-18 Thread David Boreham

Barry Moore wrote:

I have a very slow query that I'm trying to tune.  I think my  
performance tuning is being complicated by the system's page cache.


If a run the query after the system has been busy with other tasks  
for quite a long time then the query can take up to 8-10 minutes to  
complete.  If I then rerun the same query it will complete in a  
couple of seconds.


Does anyone know how I can repeatedly run the same query in the  
worst case scenario of no postgres data in the disk cache (e.g.,  
clear the page cache or force it to be ignored)?


In my experience the only 100% reliable way to do this is to reboot the 
machine.




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Re: [PERFORM] Performance Tuning and Disk Cache

2007-03-18 Thread Rangarajan Vasudevan
If you are running on a Linux kernel, try /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches. I
believe the appropriate command is echo 3  /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches.
Since Postgres has its own cache of data, the above followed by a PG
restart should do what you are looking for.

Ranga


 Barry Moore wrote:

 I have a very slow query that I'm trying to tune.  I think my
 performance tuning is being complicated by the system's page cache.

 If a run the query after the system has been busy with other tasks
 for quite a long time then the query can take up to 8-10 minutes to
 complete.  If I then rerun the same query it will complete in a
 couple of seconds.

 Does anyone know how I can repeatedly run the same query in the
 worst case scenario of no postgres data in the disk cache (e.g.,
 clear the page cache or force it to be ignored)?

 In my experience the only 100% reliable way to do this is to reboot the
 machine.



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Re: [PERFORM] Performance Tuning and Disk Cache

2007-03-18 Thread Michael Stone

On Sun, Mar 18, 2007 at 06:45:34AM -0600, Barry Moore wrote:
Does anyone know how I can repeatedly run the same query in the  
worst case scenario of no postgres data in the disk cache (e.g.,  
clear the page cache or force it to be ignored)?


Depends on your OS. On linux you can run:
echo 1  /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

Mike Stone

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