On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 12:16 PM, Robert DiFalco <robert.difa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First off I apologize if this is question has been beaten to death. I've > looked around for a simple answer and could not find one. > > Given a database that will not have it's PKEY or indices modified, is it > generally faster to INSERT or UPDATE data. And if there is a performance > difference is it substantial? > > I have a situation where I can easily do one or the other to the same > effect. For example, I have a journaling schema with a limited number of > "states" for an "entry". Currently each state is it's own table so I just > insert them as they occur. But I could easily have a single "entry" table > where the row is updated with column information for states (after the > entry's initial insertion). > > Not a big deal but since it's so easy for me to take either approach I was > wondering if one was more efficient (for a large DB) than another. > > There is HOT (heap only tuple?) optimization that can occur if only non-indexed data is altered. I do not recall the specifics. Dave
