Re: Unusual table size and very slow inserts

Ivano Luberti wrote:
> This is what I was thinking , but today I was able to look at the
> processes running while a client was doing a bunc of inserts. There was
> no autovacuum running and every insert was taking many seconds to e
> executed.
>   

Have you done any basic tuning of the database parameters?  From your 
earlier message, it sounds like you might have checkpoint_segments at 
its default, which can contribute to these inserts taking so long.  See 
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Tuning_Your_PostgreSQL_Server for a 
guide to where to start.

Also, if you want to get a better idea what's actually going on with 
your data, you should be looking at "select * from pg_stat_user_tables" 
; that will give you information about things like how many dead rows 
there are in the table, when autovacuum last did some work, etc.  Should 
be possible to figure out what's different about the use pattern of this 
table compared to the ones you suggest work as expected by analyzing 
that data.

P.S. To clean up from one of these messes you might try CLUSTER instead 
of VACUUM FULL. 

-- 
Greg Smith  2ndQuadrant US  Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com   www.2ndQuadrant.us