Curt Sampson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Mon, 9 Sep 2002, Tom Lane wrote: >> ... We are trying to measure the behavior when kernel >> caching is not helpful; if the database fits in RAM then you are just >> naturally going to get random_page_cost close to 1, because the kernel >> will avoid doing any I/O at all.
> Um...yeah; another reason to use randread against a raw disk device. > (A little hard to use on linux systems, I bet, but works fine on > BSD systems.) Umm... not really; surely randread wouldn't know anything about read-ahead logic? The reason this is a difficult topic is that we are trying to measure certain kernel behaviors --- namely readahead for sequential reads --- and not others --- namely caching, because we have other parameters of the cost models that purport to deal with that. Mebbe this is an impossible task and we need to restructure the cost models from the ground up. But I'm not convinced of that. The fact that a one-page shell script can't measure the desired quantity doesn't mean we can't measure it with more effort. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly