PostgreSQL 10 High Performance - Third Edition

Short stroking

As disks have this very clear, faster portion to them, and capacities are very large. One observation you can easily make is that you should put the most important pieces of data on the early parts of the disk. One popular technique, named short stroking, limits the portion of the disk used to only include the fastest part, assuring you'll only be accessing its best area. Short stroking can be done just by adjusting the disk's partition table to only include the early part. You might partition the slower portion anyway, but just not use it regularly. Saving it for backups or migration use can be worthwhile. Occasionally, you can force short stroking using more physical means, such as a disk vendor or RAID controller tool that ...