Thread: Text field performance

Text field performance

From
Glen Parker
Date:
We are having some performance issues we think may be related to large
text field values, and many records.  So, a couple questions...

1) Are text values always stored in the companion text file, or only if
they exceed a certain size?  What size?

2) When the query executer reads tuples during a query, does it always
read the text companion file too?  For example, the executer finds an
index match and then goes after the heap tuple to continue field
matching.  Now, assuming the query does not contain any conditions
involving a text field, does the executer read the text field in even if
the tuple does not match and won't be included in the result set?

3) Is there any eqivelent to the CLUSTER functionality for text
companion files?  Is there any such thing planned?  What's the best way
to reduce fragmentation in a text companion file?

TIA

-Glen

Re: Text field performance

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Glen Parker <glenebob@nwlink.com> writes:
> We are having some performance issues we think may be related to large
> text field values, and many records.  So, a couple questions...

See
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/static/storage-toast.html

            regards, tom lane

Re: Text field performance

From
Glen Parker
Date:
We're still on 7.4 (sorry, probly should have mentioned that).  Does
that documentation apply to the 7.4 series as well?

Maybe an easier question is, can we expect a TOAST performance increase
when upgrading to 8.1?

Thx again...

-Glen

Tom Lane wrote:
> Glen Parker <glenebob@nwlink.com> writes:
>
>>We are having some performance issues we think may be related to large
>>text field values, and many records.  So, a couple questions...
>
>
> See
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/static/storage-toast.html
>
>             regards, tom lane
>
>


Re: Text field performance

From
Neil Conway
Date:
On Tue, 2006-01-17 at 15:01 -0800, Glen Parker wrote:
> We're still on 7.4 (sorry, probly should have mentioned that).  Does
> that documentation apply to the 7.4 series as well?

AFAIK, there haven't been any major changes to TOAST since 7.4, so most
of that documentation should be applicable.

> Maybe an easier question is, can we expect a TOAST performance increase
> when upgrading to 8.1?

A lot of performance improvements have been made since since 7.4, but I
don't believe any of them have affected TOAST in particular.

-Neil