Asynchronous IO Arrives in Postgres 18

Postgres 18 just dropped with a raft of goodies—think UUIDv7, an “over explain” module, composite index skip-scans—and the big headline: built-in asynchronous I/O. The show kicks off by contrasting synchronous vs. asynchronous calls, reviews how PG 17 handled sync I/O, then dives into the pain points of making async I/O happen in Postgres.

You’ll get a tour of the three I/O methods in PG 18—worker threads, Linux’s io_uring, and the good-old sync fallback—plus a peek at upcoming work like backend writer support, better worker modes, and direct I/O. It’s a tight, no-fluff deep dive for anyone curious how Postgres is leveling up its I/O game.

Watch on YouTube