Hi, AFAIUI, work_mem is used for some operations (sort, hash, etc) for avoiding the use of temp files on disk... In a client server i'm monitoring (pg 8.3.7, 32GB of ram) work_mem is set to 8MB, however i'm seeing a lot of temp files (>30000 in 4 hours) with small sizes (ie: 2021520 obviously lower than 8MB). so, why? maybe we use work_mem until we find isn't enough and we send just the difference to a temp file? i'm not thinking in raising work_mem until i understand this well, what's the point if we still create temp files that could fit in work_mem... PS: i have max_connections to 1024, i know i need a pool but the app is still opening persistent conecctions to the db, so is not like i could raise work_mem just easy until the app gets fixed -- Atentamente, Jaime Casanova Soporte y capacitación de PostgreSQL Asesoría y desarrollo de sistemas Guayaquil - Ecuador Cel. +59387171157 -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance