We have performance problem with query on partitioned table when query use order by and we want to use first/last rows from result set. More detail description: We have big table where each row is one telephone call (CDR). Definitnion of this table look like this: CREATE TABLE accounting.cdr_full_partitioned (it is parrent table) ( cdr_id bigint NOT NULL, id_crx_group_from bigint, -- identifier of user start_time_invite timestamp with time zone, -- start call time call_status VARCHAR -- FINF-call finished, FINC-call unfinished ..some extra data.. ) We creating 12 partitions using 'start_time_invite' column, simply we create one partition for each month. We create costraints like this: ALTER TABLE accounting.cdr_y2009_m09 ADD CONSTRAINT y2009m09 CHECK (start_time_invite >= '2009-09-01 00:00:00+02'::timestamp with time zone AND start_time_invite < '2009-10-01 00:00:00+02'::timestamp with time zone); and we define necessery indexes of course CREATE INDEX cdr_full_partitioned_y2009_m09_id_crx_group_to_key1 ON accounting.cdr_full_partitioned_y2009_m09 USING btree (id_crx_group_from, start_time_invite, call_status); The problem appears when we want to select calls for specified user with specified call_Status e.g: SELECT * FROM accounting.cdr_full_partitioned WHERE id_crx_group_from='522921' AND call_status='FINS' AND start_time_invite>='2009-09-28 00:00:00+02' AND start_time_invite<'2009-10-12 23:59:59+02' AND ORDER BY start_time_invite LIMIT '100' OFFSET 0 you can see execution plan http://szymanskich.net/pub/postgres/full.jpg as you see 20000 rows were selected and after were sorted what take very long about 30-40s and after sorting it limit result to 100 rows. Using table without partition SELECT * FROM accounting.cdr_full WHERE (id_crx_group_from='522921') AND ( call_status='FINS' ) AND (start_time_invite>='2009-01-28 00:00:00+02') AND (start_time_invite<'2009-10-12 23:59:59+02') ORDER BY start_time_invite LIMIT '100' OFFSET 0 execution plan is very simple "Limit (cost=0.00..406.40 rows=100 width=456)" " -> Index Scan using cdr_full_crx_group_from_start_time_invite_status_ind on cdr_full (cost=0.00..18275.76 rows=4497 width=456)" " Index Cond: ((id_crx_group_from = 522921::bigint) AND (start_time_invite >= '2009-01-27 23:00:00+01'::timestamp with time zone) AND (start_time_invite < '2009-10-12 23:59:59+02'::timestamp with time zone) AND ((call_status)::text = 'FINS'::text))" it use index to fetch first 100 rows and it is super fast and take less than 0.5s. There is no rows sorting! I've tried to execute the same query on one partition: SELECT * FROM accounting.cdr_full_partitioned_y2009_m09 WHERE (id_crx_group_from='509498') AND ( call_status='FINS' ) AND (start_time_invite>='2009-09-01 00:00:00+02') AND (start_time_invite<'2009-10-12 23:59:59+02') You can see execution plan http://szymanskich.net/pub/postgres/ononeprtition.jpg and query is superfast because there is no sorting. The question is how to speed up query when we use partitioning? So far I have not found solution. I'm wonder how do you solve problems when result from partition must be sorted and after we want to display only first/last 100 rows? We can use own partitioning mechanism and partitioning data using id_crx_group_from and create dynamic query (depending on id_crx_group_from we can execute query on one partition) but it is not most beautiful solution. Michal Szymanski http://blog.szymanskich.net http://techblog.freeconet.pl -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance