> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 1:26 AM, Tomas Vondra <tv@fuzzy.cz> wrote:
>> Workload A: Touches just a very small portion of the database, to the
>> 'active' part actually fits into the memory. In this case the cache hit
>> ratio can easily be close to 99%.
>>
>> Workload B: Touches large portion of the database, so it hits the drive
>> very often. In this case the cache hit ratio is usually around RAM/(size
>> of the database).
>
> You've answered it yourself without even realized it.
>
> This particular factor is not about an abstract and opaque "Workload"
> the server can't know about. It's about cache hit rate, and the server
> can indeed measure that.
OK, so it's not a matter of tuning random_page_cost/seq_page_cost? Because
tuning based on cache hit ratio is something completely different (IMHO).
Anyway I'm not an expert in this field, but AFAIK something like this
already happens - btw that's the purpose of effective_cache_size. But I'm
afraid there might be serious fail cases where the current model works
better, e.g. what if you ask for data that's completely uncached (was
inactive for a long time). But if you have an idea on how to improve this,
great - start a discussion in the hackers list and let's see.
regards
Tomas