> The 7.1 Release notes include the statement re WAL below.
>
> "Write-ahead Log (WAL)
> To maintain database consistency in case of an operating system crash,
> previous releases of PostgreSQL have forced all data modifications to
> disk before each transaction commit. With WAL, only one log file
> must be flushed to disk, greatly improving performance. If you have been
> using -F in previous releases to disable disk flushes, you may want to
> consider discontinuing its use."
>
> Have WAL changes had any impact on vacuum?
No.
> Are there other benefits gained from these changes? e.g. less
> likely to see a corrupted database in the event of a system crash,
Yes (there was posting to -general about non-atomic disk writes).
> performance gains, etc?
Sure, in multi-user environment.
> Where is the new WAL log - pg_log no longer exists?
pg_log still exists. WAL logs are in pg_xlog dir.
Vadim