COPY with high # of clients, partitioned table locking issues?

Just some information on our setup:

- HP DL585 G6
- 4 x AMD Opteron 8435 (24 cores)
- 256GB RAM
- 2 FusionIO 640GB PCI-SSD (RAID0)
- dual 10GB ethernet.

- we have several tables that we store calculated values in.
- these are inserted by a compute farm that calculates the results and stores them into a partitioned schema (schema listed below)
- whenever we do a lot of inserts we seem to get exclusive locks.

Is there something we can do to improve the performance around locking when doing a lot of parallel inserts with COPY into? We are not IO bound, what happens is that the copies start to slow down and continue to come in and cause the client to swap, we had hit over 800+ COPYS were in a waiting state, which forced us to start paging heavily creating an issue. If we can figure out the locking issue the copys should clear faster requiring less memory in use.

[ 2011-03-30 15:54:55.886 EDT ] 14405 [local] asgprod:4d938288.3845 LOG: process 14405 still waiting for ExclusiveLock on extension of relation 470273 of database 16384 after 5001.894 ms
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:55.886 EDT ] 14405 [local] asgprod:4d938288.3845 CONTEXT: COPY reportvalues_part_1931, line 1: "660250 41977959 11917 584573.43642105709"
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:55.886 EDT ] 14405 [local] asgprod:4d938288.3845 STATEMENT: COPY reportvalues_part_1931 FROM stdin USING DELIMITERS ' '
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:56.015 EDT ] 7294 [local] asgprod:4d938939.1c7e LOG: process 7294 still waiting for ExclusiveLock on extension of relation 470606 of database 16384 after 5062.968 ms
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:56.015 EDT ] 7294 [local] asgprod:4d938939.1c7e CONTEXT: COPY reportvalues_part_1932, line 158: "660729 41998839 887 45000.0"
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:56.015 EDT ] 7294 [local] asgprod:4d938939.1c7e STATEMENT: COPY reportvalues_part_1932 FROM stdin USING DELIMITERS ' '
[ 2011-03-30 15:54:56.077 EDT ] 25781 [local] asgprod:4d938556.64b5 LOG: process 25781 still waiting for ExclusiveLock on extension of relation 470606 of database 16384 after 5124.463 ms

relation | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 93/677526 | 14354 | RowExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 1047/4 | 27451 | RowExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 724/58891 | 20721 | RowExclusiveLock | t
transactionid | | | | | | 94673393 | | | | 110/502566 | 1506 | ExclusiveLock | t
virtualxid | | | | | 975/92 | | | | | 975/92 | 25751 | ExclusiveLock | t
extend | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 672/102043 | 20669 | ExclusiveLock | f
extend | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 1178/10 | 6074 | ExclusiveLock | f
virtualxid | | | | | 37/889225 | | | | | 37/889225 | 4623 | ExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 405725 | | | | | | | | 39/822056 | 32502 | AccessShareLock | t
transactionid | | | | | | 94673831 | | | | 917/278 | 23134 | ExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470609 | | | | | | | | 537/157021 | 11863 | RowExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470609 | | | | | | | | 532/91114 | 7282 | RowExclusiveLock | t
virtualxid | | | | | 920/8 | | | | | 920/8 | 23137 | ExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 425555 | | | | | | | | 39/822056 | 32502 | AccessShareLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 915/10 | 22619 | RowExclusiveLock | t
relation | 16384 | 470606 | | | | | | | | 344/387563 | 30343 | RowExclusiveLock | tNumber of child tables: 406 (Use \d+ to list them.)

riskresults=# \d reportvalues_part_1932;
Table "public.reportvalues_part_1932"
Column | Type | Modifiers
--------------+------------------+-----------
reportid | integer | not null
scenarioid | integer | not null
instrumentid | integer | not null
value | double precision |
Indexes:
"reportvalues_part_1932_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (reportid, scenarioid, instrumentid)
Inherits: reportvalues_part

riskresults=# \d reportvalues_part;
Table "public.reportvalues_part"
Column | Type | Modifiers
--------------+------------------+-----------
reportid | integer | not null
scenarioid | integer | not null
instrumentid | integer | not null
value | double precision |
Indexes:
"reportvalues_part_pkey" PRIMARY KEY, btree (reportid, scenarioid, instrumentid)
Number of child tables: 406 (Use \d+ to list them.)

This communication is for informational purposes only. It is not
intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of
any financial instrument or as an official confirmation of any
transaction. All market prices, data and other information are not
warranted as to completeness or accuracy and are subject to change
without notice. Any comments or statements made herein do not
necessarily reflect those of JPMorgan Chase & Co., its subsidiaries
and affiliates.

This transmission may contain information that is privileged,
confidential, legally privileged, and/or exempt from disclosure
under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you
are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or
use of the information contained herein (including any reliance
thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Although this transmission and any
attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect
that might affect any computer system into which it is received and
opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it
is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by JPMorgan Chase &
Co., its subsidiaries and affiliates, as applicable, for any loss
or damage arising in any way from its use. If you received this
transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and
destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard
copy format. Thank you.

Please refer to http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures for
disclosures relating to European legal entities.