Re: TOAST performance (was Re: [GENERAL] Delete Performance)

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> > What bothers me about this is that we have the original page with the
> > old data. It would be nice if we could write the new page in a
> > different location, make the new page active and recycle the old page at
> > some later time.
>
> I don't see how that reduces the total amount of disk traffic?
>
> It's also kind of unclear how to do it without doubling (or worse) the
> amount of table space used in many common scenarios. I doubt many
> people will be happy if "DELETE FROM foo" requires transient space equal
> to twice the original size of foo.

IIRC the double space requrement is what has kept us from implementing
DROP COLUMN.

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Hannu