Improving PostgreSQL Performance with Partitioning
My recommended methodology for performance improvement of PostgreSQL starts with query optimization. The second step is architectural improvements, part of which is the partitioning of large tables.Partitioning in PostgreSQL is one of those advanced features that can be a powerful performance booster. If your PostgreSQL tables are becoming very large and sluggish, partitioning might be the cure.The Big Table ProblemLarge tables tend to grow uncontrollably, especially in OLTP or time-series workloads. As millions or billions of rows accumulate, you begin to notice:Slow queries due to full table scans or massive indexes.Heavy I/O usage, especially when indexes cannot fit in memory.Bloated memory during operations like sorting or joining.Increased maintenance cost, with longer VACUUM, ANALYZE, and REINDEX times.Hard-to-manage retention policies, as purging old rows becomes expensive.These problems are amplified in cloud-hosted databases, where every IOPS, GB, or CPU upgrade increases cost.