Re: [HACKERS] autovacuum can't keep up, bloat just continues to rise

Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> writes:
> My argument for the importance of index bloat to the more general
> bloat problem is simple: any bloat that accumulates, that cannot be
> cleaned up, will probably accumulate until it impacts performance
> quite noticeably.

But that just begs the question: *does* it accumulate indefinitely, or
does it eventually reach a more-or-less steady state?  The traditional
wisdom about btrees, for instance, is that no matter how full you pack
them to start with, the steady state is going to involve something like
1/3rd free space.  You can call that bloat if you want, but it's not
likely that you'll be able to reduce the number significantly without
paying exorbitant costs.

I'm not claiming that we don't have any problems, but I do think it's
important to draw a distinction between bloat and normal operating
overhead.
        regards, tom lane