Thanks Tom!
explain output:
Merge Join  (cost=60454519.54..70701005.93 rows=682951183 width=22)
  Merge Cond: (("outer".y = "inner".y) AND ("outer".x = "inner".x))
  ->  Sort  (cost=41812068.08..42304601.78 rows=197013479 width=20)
        Sort Key: Master.y, Master.x
-> Seq Scan on Master (cost=0.00..3129037.79 rows=197013479 width=20)
  ->  Sort  (cost=18642451.46..18879400.92 rows=94779784 width=10)
        Sort Key: Import.y, Import.x
-> Seq Scan on Import (cost=0.00..1460121.84 rows=94779784 width=10)

Don't really understand all those numbers but they look big, to me.

work_mem is set to 262144. should it be bigger? i have 1.5GB ram on the system. also i set /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax to 256000000. too big, too small?

There are no foreign key constraints on either table. I don't know what hashjoin or sort-and-mergejoin are but I will look into them.

Thanks!
Ken

Tom Lane wrote:
Ken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
I have postgres 8.1 on a linux box: 2.6Ghz P4, 1.5GB ram, 320GB hard drive. I'm performing an update between two large tables and so far it's been running for 24+ hours. UPDATE Master SET val2=Import.val WHERE Master.x=Import.x AND Master.y=Import.y;

What does EXPLAIN say about that?  (Don't try EXPLAIN ANALYZE,
but a plain EXPLAIN should be quick enough.)

Both tables have indexes on the x and y columns.  Will that help?

A two-column index would have helped a lot more, probably, although
with so many rows to process I'm not sure that indexes are useful
anyway.  For really bulk updates a hashjoin or sort-and-mergejoin
plan is probably the best bet.

BTW, both of those would require plenty of work_mem to run fast
... what have you got work_mem set to?

And possibly even more to the point, do you have any foreign key
constraints leading into or out of the Master table?

                        regards, tom lane


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