Re: [PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-23 Thread Simon Riggs
On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 11:17 +0100, Markus Schaber wrote: PostgreSQL 8.1 (and, back then, 7.4) have the tendency to underestimate the costs of sort operations, compared to index scans. The Backend allocates gigs of memory (we've set sort_mem to 1 gig), and then starts spilling out more Gigs

[PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-22 Thread Markus Schaber
Hi, PostgreSQL 8.1 (and, back then, 7.4) have the tendency to underestimate the costs of sort operations, compared to index scans. The Backend allocates gigs of memory (we've set sort_mem to 1 gig), and then starts spilling out more Gigs of temporary data to the disk. So the execution gets - in

Re: [PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-22 Thread Steinar H. Gunderson
On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 11:17:23AM +0100, Markus Schaber wrote: The Backend allocates gigs of memory (we've set sort_mem to 1 gig), and then starts spilling out more Gigs of temporary data to the disk. How much RAM is in the server? Remember that sort_mem is _per sort_, so if you have multiple

Re: [PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-22 Thread Markus Schaber
Hi, Steinar, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote: On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 11:17:23AM +0100, Markus Schaber wrote: The Backend allocates gigs of memory (we've set sort_mem to 1 gig), and then starts spilling out more Gigs of temporary data to the disk. How much RAM is in the server? Remember that

Re: [PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-22 Thread Markus Schaber
Hi, Frank, Frank Wiles wrote: The temporary data is not swapping, it's the Postgres on-disk sort algorithm. Are you actually running a query where you have a GB of data you need to sort? If not I fear you may be causing the system to swap by setting it this high. Yes, the

Re: [PERFORM] PostgreSQL underestimates sorting

2006-11-22 Thread Frank Wiles
On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:28:12 +0100 Markus Schaber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Steinar, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote: On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 11:17:23AM +0100, Markus Schaber wrote: The Backend allocates gigs of memory (we've set sort_mem to 1 gig), and then starts spilling out more Gigs