Understanding PostgreSQL WAL and optimizing it with a dedicated disk

If you manage a PostgreSQL database with heavy write activity, one of the most important components to understand is the Write-Ahead Log (WAL). WAL is the foundation of PostgreSQL’s durability and crash recovery as it records every change before it’s applied to the main data files. But because WAL writes are synchronous and frequent, they can also become a serious performance bottleneck when they share the same disk with regular data I/O.
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3 Features I am Looking Forward to in PostgreSQL 18

It is that time of the year again. The first release candidate of PostgreSQL 18 is out, and things look promising. We should expect General Availability in the next 2-4 weeks. Exciting times! Over the past many years and as many releases, the PostgreSQL community has done a phenomenal job of being disciplined about the annual release process. And we have done so averaging 150+ new features with each release!
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The Hidden Bottleneck in PostgreSQL Restores and its Solution

In July 2025, during the PG19-1 CommitFest, I reviewed a patch targeting the lack of parallelism when adding foreign keys in pg_restore. Around the same time, I was helping a client with a large production migration where pg_restore dragged on for more than 24 hours and crashed multiple times. In this blog, I will talk about the technical limitations in PostgreSQL, the proposed fix, and a practical workaround for surviving large restores.
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