# Controling HOT usage in 8.3

DevFeed: [Controling HOT usage in 8.3](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/controling-hot-usage-in-8-3-34334.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tapoueh.org/blog/2009/01/controling-hot-usage-in-8.3/>)

Author: Dimitri Fontaine PostgreSQL Major Contributor; Author

Published: 2009-01-27T23:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Dimitri Fontaine](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/dimitri-fontaine.md>)

Topics: [PostgreSQL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/postgresql.md>), [Database](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/database.md>), [maintenance](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/maintenance.md>)

Tags: [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [maintenance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/maintenance.md>), [postgresql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgresql.md>), [table](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/table.md>), [vacuum](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vacuum.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how PostgreSQL's Heap Only Tuples (HOT) optimize updates that do not change indexed values by avoiding index maintenance. It discusses the need for free space on the same disk page, recommends a lower table fillfactor, and presents queries for checking whether HOT is benefiting a table.

## Source excerpt

As it happens, I've got some environments where I want to make sure HOT ( aka Heap Only Tuples) is in use. Because we're doing so much updates a second that I want to get sure it's not killing my database server. I not only wrote some checking view to see about it, but also made a quick article about it in the French PostgreSQL website. Handling around in #postgresql means that I'm now bound to write about it in English too!