Re: buffercache/bgwriter

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 6:19 AM, Jochen Erwied
<jochen(at)pgsql-performance(dot)erwied(dot)eu> wrote:
> Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 1:51:31 PM you wrote:
>
> [rearranged for quoting]
>
>> background writer stats
>>  checkpoints_timed | checkpoints_req | buffers_checkpoint | buffers_clean |
>> maxwritten_clean | buffers_backend | buffers_alloc
>> -------------------+-----------------+--------------------+---------------+------------------+-----------------+---------------
>>                  3 |               0 |              99754 |             0
>> |                0 |          115307 |        246173
>> (1 row)
>
> buffers_clean = 0 ?!
>
>> But I don't understand how postgres is unable to fetch a free buffer.
>> Does any body have an idea?
>
> Somehow looks like the bgwriter is completely disabled. How are the
> relevant settings in your postgresql.conf?

I suspect the work load is entirely bulk inserts, and is using a
Buffer Access Strategy. By design, bulk inserts generally write out
their own buffers.

Cheers,

Jeff