8. Buffer Manager

The buffer manager manages data transfers between shared memory and persistent storage, and it can have a significant impact on the performance of the DBMS. The PostgreSQL buffer manager works very efficiently.

In this chapter describes the PostgreSQL buffer manager. The first section provides an overview, and the subsequent sections describe the following topics:

  • Buffer manager structure
  • Buffer manager locks
  • How the buffer manager works
  • Ring buffer
  • Flushing of dirty pages
Fig. 8.1. Relations between buffer manager, storage, and backend processes.
Chapter Contents