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

Summary

Postgres 18 ships a host of features—UUIDv7 support, an “over explain” module, composite index skip scans—and, most notably, the long-awaited asynchronous I/O modes. In this episode of The Backend Engineering Show, Hussein contrasts synchronous vs. asynchronous calls, revisits sync I/O in Postgres 17, then dives into the challenges and implementation of async I/O in PG 18.

He unpacks the new io_method options—worker threads and io_uring—compares them to the classic sync mode, and outlines future enhancements like backend writer support, improved worker I/O, and direct I/O. A handy time-stamped guide helps you jump right to each topic.

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