Hi,
On Tue, Jul 07, 2026 at 11:02:03AM +0000, Bertrand Drouvot wrote:
> postgres=# select count(*),avg(length(data)) from smalldocs;
> count | avg
> ---------+-----------------------
> 1024000 | 1024.0000000000000000
> (1 row)
>
> postgres=# SELECT * FROM pg_stat_get_backend_aio(pg_backend_pid());
> started | executed_sync | executed_async | completed_self | completed_other
> | handle_waits | submitted | stats_reset
> ---------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------+-------------------------------
> 3125 | 46 | 3079 | 46 | 0
> | 0 | 3078 | 2026-07-07 09:28:27.412136+00
>
> We can see that the sequential scan fully benefits from AIO.
>
> 2/ query the largedocs table:
>
> postgres=# select count(*),avg(length(data)) from largedocs;
> count | avg
> -------+----------------------
> 1000 | 1048576.000000000000
> (1 row)
>
> postgres=# SELECT * FROM pg_stat_get_backend_aio(pg_backend_pid());
> started | executed_sync | executed_async | completed_self | completed_other
> | handle_waits | submitted | stats_reset
> ---------+---------------+----------------+----------------+-----------------+--------------+-----------+-------------------------------
> 121154 | 121150 | 4 | 121150 | 0
> | 0 | 4 | 2026-07-07 09:35:00.504872+00
>
> We can see that the sequential scan bypasses AIO.
I was just doing some AIO experiments and was using the new
pg_stat_get_backend_aio()
function.
So, while at it, sharing more examples here:
3/ pg_stat_get_backend_aio() and pg_stat_get_backend_io() correlation
postgres=# SELECT executed_sync, executed_async FROM
pg_stat_get_backend_aio(pg_backend_pid());
executed_sync | executed_async
---------------+----------------
46 | 3088
(1 row)
postgres=# SELECT object, context, reads, read_bytes FROM
pg_stat_get_backend_io(pg_backend_pid());
object | context | reads | read_bytes
---------------+-----------+-------+------------
relation | bulkread | 3088 | 401580032
relation | bulkwrite | 0 | 0
relation | init | 0 | 0
relation | normal | 46 | 376832
relation | vacuum | 0 | 0
temp relation | normal | 0 | 0
wal | init | |
wal | normal | 0 | 0
(8 rows)
We can see that the "executed_sync" matches the reads "normal" context and that
the "executed_async" matches the reads "bulkread" context.
4/ io_uring and multiple backends
postgres=# SELECT a.pid,
(pg_stat_get_backend_aio(a.pid)).completed_other
FROM pg_stat_activity a
WHERE a.backend_type = 'client backend';
pid | completed_other
---------+-----------------
1911889 | 245
1911892 | 511
1911912 | 147
1911933 | 161
(4 rows)
We can see that the backends completed AIO on behalf of other backends, which
makes fully sense in io_uring mode.
5/ io_max_concurrency = 4
postgres=# SELECT started, handle_waits FROM
pg_stat_get_backend_aio(pg_backend_pid());
started | handle_waits
---------+--------------
3139 | 3026
(1 row)
We can see that the backend had to wait for free AIO handles on 96% of its IOs.
Regards,
--
Bertrand Drouvot
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com
