Asynchronous IO in Postgres 18

Postgres 18 just landed with a bunch of goodies—UUIDv7, an “over explain” module, composite index skip-scans and (drumroll) true async IO. In this Backend Engineering Show episode, Hussein breaks down sync vs async calls, revisits Postgres 17’s sync IO, then dives into the hurdles of async IO in v18.

He demos the three new io_methods—worker, io_uring and legacy sync—explains what’s still cooking (backend writers, direct IO support and more), and wraps up with a clear takeaway: async IO in Postgres 18 is a huge leap, but there’s still room to grow. Enjoy!

Watch on YouTube