Re: why my query is not using index?? - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Greg Stark
Subject Re: why my query is not using index??
Date
Msg-id 87fz4k3fig.fsf@stark.xeocode.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: why my query is not using index??  (John Meinel <john@johnmeinel.com>)
List pgsql-performance
John Meinel <john@johnmeinel.com> writes:

> As Janning mentioned, sometimes sequential scans *are* faster. If the number of
> entries that will be found is large compared to the number of total entries (I
> don't know the percentages, but probably >30-40%),

Actually 30%-40% is unrealistic. The traditional rule of thumb for the
break-even point was 10%. In POstgres the actual percentage varies based on
how wide the records are and how correlated the location of the records is
with the index. Usually it's between 5%-10% but it can be even lower than that
sometimes.

--
greg

pgsql-performance by date:

Previous
From: Tom Lane
Date:
Subject: Re: EXPLAIN ANALYZE much slower than running query normally
Next
From: Christopher Browne
Date:
Subject: Re: IBM P-series machines (was: Excessive context