Re: Using an SMP machine to make multiple indices on the same table

On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 05:38:23PM -0400, Martin Weinberg wrote:
> Folks,
>
> We have some big tables (1.2 billion records) and indexing is quite
> time consuming. Since we have this running on dual Athlon box, it
> would be great to make indices in parallel.
>
> On Postgresql 7.1.3, it seems that the table is locked after the
> first "create index" is started up. Is this right? Is there any
> way to do this in parallel?

My question in, would it help. The creation of the index should only be
limited by the bandwidth of the drives. I would think that creating two
indexes at the same time would simply trash the disk a lot and end up being
slower.

The answer to your questions however, are yes and no respectivly.

HTH,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>
http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Magnetism, electricity and motion are like a three-for-two special offer:
> if you have two of them, the third one comes free.