work_mem v11

Parameter Type: Integer

Default Value: 1MB

Range: 64kB to 2097151kB

Minimum Scope of Effect: Per session

When Value Changes Take Effect: Immediate

Required Authorization to Activate: Session user

Specifies the amount of memory to be used by internal sort operations and hash tables before writing to temporary disk files. The value defaults to one megabyte (1MB). Note that for a complex query, several sort or hash operations might be running in parallel; each operation will be allowed to use as much memory as this value specifies before it starts to write data into temporary files. Also, several running sessions could be doing such operations concurrently. Therefore, the total memory used could be many times the value of work_mem; it is necessary to keep this fact in mind when choosing the value. Sort operations are used for ORDER BY, DISTINCT, and merge joins. Hash tables are used in hash joins, hash-based aggregation, and hash-based processing of IN subqueries.

Reasonable values are typically between 4MB and 64MB, depending on the size of your machine, how many concurrent connections you expect (determined by max_connections), and the complexity of your queries.