work-mem

["Campbell, Lance" <lance(at)uiuc(dot)edu>]

I have been researching how to improve my overall performance of postgres.  I am a little confused on the reasoning for how work-mem is used in the postgresql.conf file.  The way I understand the documentation is you define with work-mem how much memory you want to allocate per search.  Couldn’t you run out of memory?  This approach seems kind of odd to me.  How do you tell the system not to allocate too much memory if you all of the sudden got hit with a heavier number of queries? 

 

 

Thanks,

 

Lance Campbell

Project Manager/Software Architect

Web Services at Public Affairs

University of Illinois

217.333.0382

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