background writer. In each round the writer issues writes
for some number of dirty buffers (controllable by the
following parameters). It then sleeps for bgwriter_delay>
- milliseconds, and repeats. The default value is 200 milliseconds
- (200ms>). Note that on many systems, the effective
- resolution of sleep delays is 10 milliseconds; setting
- bgwriter_delay> to a value that is not a multiple of
- 10 might have the same results as setting it to the next higher
- multiple of 10. This parameter can only be set in the
+ milliseconds, and repeats. When there are no dirty buffers in the
+ buffer pool, though, it goes into a longer sleep regardless of
+ bgwriter_delay>. The default value is 200
+ milliseconds (200ms>). Note that on many systems, the
+ effective resolution of sleep delays is 10 milliseconds; setting
+ bgwriter_delay> to a value that is not a multiple of 10
+ might have the same results as setting it to the next higher multiple
+ of 10. This parameter can only be set in the
postgresql.conf> file or on the server command line.