Re: Preallocation changes in Postgresql 16

On Fri, Apr 26, 2024 at 4:37 AM Riku Iki <riku.iki.x@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am wondering if there were preallocation related changes in PG16, and if it is possible to disable preallocation in PostgreSQL 16?

I have no opinion on the btrfs details, but I was wondering if someone
might show up with a system that doesn't like that change.  Here is a
magic 8, tuned on "some filesystems":

        /*
         * If available and useful, use posix_fallocate() (via
         * FileFallocate()) to extend the relation. That's often more
         * efficient than using write(), as it commonly won't cause the kernel
         * to allocate page cache space for the extended pages.
         *
         * However, we don't use FileFallocate() for small extensions, as it
         * defeats delayed allocation on some filesystems. Not clear where
         * that decision should be made though? For now just use a cutoff of
         * 8, anything between 4 and 8 worked OK in some local testing.
         */
        if (numblocks > 8)

I wonder if it wants to be a GUC.