How can I speed up update/replace operations in PostgreSQL?

Question

We have a rather specific application that uses PostgreSQL 8.3 as a storage backend (using Python and psycopg2). The operations we perform to the important tables are in the ma

Answer 1

Sounds like you'd see benefits from using WAL (Write Ahead Logging) with a UPS to cache your updates between disk writes.

wal_buffers This setting decides the number of buffers WAL(Write ahead Log) can have. If your database has many write transactions, setting this value bit higher than default could result better usage of disk space. Experiment and decide. A good start would be around 32-64 corresponding to 256-512K memory.

http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/Tidbits/perf.html