Re: bad performance on Solaris 10 - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Chris Mair
Subject Re: bad performance on Solaris 10
Date
Msg-id 1144278835.5133.11.camel@dell.home.lan
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: bad performance on Solaris 10  (Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>)
List pgsql-performance
> > > Doing what http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jkshah suggests:
> > >   wal_sync_method = fsync (unchanged)
> > >   wal_buffers = 128 (was 8)
> > >   checkpoint_segments = 128 (was 3)
> > >   bgwriter_all_percent = 0 (was 0.333)
> > >   bgwriter_all_maxpages = 0 (was 5)
> > > and leaving everything else default (solarispackages from pgfoundry)
> > > increased performance ~ 7 times!

Ok, so I could quite believe my own benchmarks and I decided
to do a fresh initdb and retry everything.

At first it looked like I coudn't reproduce the speed up I just saw.

Then I realized it was the
wal_sync_method = fsync
line that makes all the difference!

Normally parameters that are commented are default values, but for
wal_sync_method it actually says (note the comment):

wal_sync_method = fsync          # the default is the first option
                                 # supported by the operating system:
                                 #   open_datasync
                                 #   fdatasync
                                 #   fsync
                                 #   fsync_writethrough
                                 #   open_sync

So Im my last mail I drew the wrong conclusion, because i didn't comment
wal_sync_method to double check.

To the point: the default wal_sync_method choosen on Solaris 10 appears
to be a very bad one - for me, picking fsync increases performance ~
times 7, all other parameters unchanged!

Would it be a good idea to change this in the default install?

Bye, Chris.

PS: yes I did a fresh initdb again to double check ;)


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