Re: Adding and filling new column on big table

On Tue, 2006-05-30 at 16:04, Jonathan Blitz wrote:
> >
> > Most laptop drives are only 5,400 RPM which would make a transaction like
> > you are describing likely take a while.
>
> Not sure what my one is but it is new(ish).
>
> >
> > No desktop at home you could try it on?
> > I think the problem with the laptop is likely it's drive.
>
> I suppose I could do but I need to install PostgreSQL there and then copy
> over the database.

Keep in mind, most, if not all IDE drives lie about fsync, so the speed
of the drive is a limit only if you're actually writing a lot of data.
If you're doing a lot of little transactions, the drive should be lying
and holding the data in cache on board, so the speed should be OK.