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

TL;DR

Postgres 18 is here with a bunch of cool goodies—think UUIDv7, an Over explain module and composite index skip scans—but the real showstopper is its new async I/O. The video breaks down the basics of sync vs async calls, revisits how Postgres 17 handled disk ops synchronously, then dives into the hurdles of adding true async I/O to your favorite database.

You’ll get a hands-on tour of the two new io_methods—worker (POSIX-threaded helpers) and io_uring (Linux’s event-driven engine)—plus the classic sync fallback. Stick around for a peek at what’s next: backend writer support, beefed-up worker mode and direct I/O. All in about 40 minutes!

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