Asynchronous IO in Postgres 18

Postgres 18 rolls out some slick new toys—think UUIDv7, an “over” explain module, composite index skip scans and, star of the show, real asynchronous I/O using both worker threads and Linux’s io_uring. In this episode, Hussein breaks down why async calls matter, revisits Postgres 17’s sync-only approach, and dives into the nitty-gritty of io_method=worker, io_uring and even the fallback sync mode.

He also teases what’s next—better backend-writer support, improved worker I/O and direct-IO everywhere—so buckle up if you’re into squeezing every last drop of performance out of your database.

Watch on YouTube