Can I use hypertables in timescaledb merely to get better insert rates?

Question

I have a PostgreSQL db that I have a large bulk load running into. I wish this load to be as fast as possible. I'm already using the copy command etc.

I have been reading about timescaledb and how it offers improved insert performance. However, I wonder if there is any downside to using hypertables instead of regular tables, if I only care about insert performance?

Answer 1

(Timescale person here.)

Yes, you should be able to get much higher insert rate in a TimescaleDB hypertable than a normal table.

The primary downside of hypertables is that there are a couple limitations they expose related to the way we do internal scaling. In particular:

• We only allow a key to be marked as UNIQUE if it includes all partitioning keys (in its prefix). So if you partition on a time column, the time column could be unique, or you could build a unique composite key on (time, device_id). But this means you can't build a standard auto-increment id as the primary key (note primary keys are be definition UNIQUE). But we find that doesn't typically make sense for time-series data.

• You can define a foreign-key constraint from your hypertable to a regular table, but we don't currently allow the opposite: a FK from a regular table to a hypertable. (But same as the UNIQUE constraint limitation above, this rarely makes sense or can be designed around.)

If you have other questions, Docs (docs.timescale.com) or community Slack (slack.timescale.com) are great resources.