Optimizing postgresql table for more than 100K inserts per second

README.md

Optimizing postgresql table for more than 100K inserts per second

• Create UNLOGGED table. This reduces the amount of data written to persistent storage by up to 2x.
• Set WITH (autovacuum_enabled=false) on the table. This saves CPU time and IO bandwidth on useless vacuuming of the table (since we never DELETE or UPDATE the table).
• Insert rows with COPY FROM STDIN. This is the fastest possible approach to insert rows into table.
• Minimize the number of indexes in the table, since they slow down inserts. Usually an index on time timestamp with time zone is enough.
• Add synchronous_commit = off to postgresql.conf.
• Use table inheritance for fast removal of old data:

CREATE TABLE parent ... ;
CREATE TABLE child_1() INHERITS (parent);
CREATE TABLE child_2() INHERITS (parent);

-- always INSERT rows into child_1.
-- SELECT from parent.

-- periodically run the follwing sql for rotating child_1 with child_2:
TRUNCATE TABLE child_2;
BEGIN;
ALTER TABLE child_1 RENAME TO child_tmp;
ALTER TABLE child_2 RENAME TO child_1;
ALTER TABLE child_tmp RENAME TO child_2;
COMMIT;

This is much faster comparing to

DELETE FROM parent WHERE time < now() - interval 'given period'

This also avoids table fragmentation, so SELECT queries work faster on the table.

For fast removal of data, would it be better to use table partitioning on a single table with the partitioning done by some time period so you can then just drop the partition later?

Probably table partitioning could be better solution with new PostgreSQL versions. The guide was written when table partitioning in pg wasn't easy from operations point of view.

I think using some query profiler like this could be also helpful in this case.

Another optimization I learned about recently: avoid having any DEFAULTs on columns which are non-constant (e.g. SERIAL or DEFAULT uuid_generate_v4()) -- pre-generating IDs is much faster.

It doesn't seem possible to set autovacuum_enabled=false on tables. I know this is a feature coming to PG 13, but this was created back in 2016. Am I missing something?

@voltechs I checked every version from postgres 9 up and it's possible:

postgres=# create table test();
CREATE TABLE
postgres=# alter table test set (autovacuum_enabled=false);
ALTER TABLE

Or in one go

create table test() with (autovacuum_enabled=false);
CREATE TABLE