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Jul 25, 2026 · Databases

Why a Simple DELETE on a 20k‑Partition Table Exhausted 120 GB Memory in 60 seconds

In PostgreSQL versions prior to 14, a DELETE without a partition filter on a table with 20,000 partitions caused the server to allocate over 120 GB of memory within 60 seconds; the article shows how to reproduce the issue, diagnose it with MemoryContextStat and perf, and explains the fix introduced in PG14.