Hussein Nasser: Asynchronous IO in Postgres 18 | The Backend Engineering Show

Postgres 18 just landed with a killer feature lineup—think UUIDv7, the “over” explain module, and composite index skip scans—but the real headliner is true asynchronous I/O. Hussein kicks things off by breaking down sync vs. async calls, revisits Postgres 17’s sync I/O bottleneck, and digs into the challenges of weaving async I/O into Postgres.

Next up, you get the low-down on the new io_method options—worker threads, io_uring magic, or the trusty sync fallback—and a sneak peek at what’s coming: beefed-up backend writer support, direct I/O enhancements, and more refinements to turbocharge your database’s throughput. It’s a 37-minute deep dive every DBA will want to binge.

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