How many people have ordered the database column types explicitly for better disk packing?
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Saw a DB recently reclaim about 25% of their space from better bin packing. I was surprised to see it. Sure there are often other low hanging fruit too, unused indexes and bloat both being big factors, but was interesting to observe actual impact.
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I agree with 's assessment. It's not that there is no problem here; it's that the extent of the problem will vary significantly, sometimes within an individual table.
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I’ve never done this myself, but I remember reading about Braintree doing it, and the gem they created to automate it.
Checking it again now it says they saved about 10%:
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Oh yeah. That number seems far more reasonable to me. But hard to generalize here. Sometimes when you reduce heap fillfactor from the default of 100 to (say) 90, the table tends to be smaller over time - not larger. Second order effects can really matter, but are complicated.