Speed up PostgreSQL with Django tests

My tests were taking forever. OK, only about 251 seconds (4 minutes), but that’s forever when you only have 11 tests! (In this one app.)

A lot of people talk about how to speed up PostgreSQL, but here it is in a nutshell:

Turn off fsync and full_page_writes in postgresql.conf

Specifically, here’s how I did it on my Linx Mint 13 box:

1. Edit postgresql.conf.

$ sudo vim /etc/postgresql/9.1/main/postgresql.conf

Change these lines and saved:

fsync = off
full_page_writes = off

2. Restart postgresql.

$ sudo service postgresql restart

Now, when I run my 11 tests, it only takes 34 seconds. That’s 8x faster!

NOTE: Probably don’t do this on your Production box.