--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Scott Buckham"
<scott_buckham@...> wrote:

>
> I am using Firebird 1.5.3. I am interested in two things:
>
> Most importantly: Will doing a gbak (without –g) on a nightly basis

help in

> CPU spikes if garbage collection is the culprit.

Yes it will help, providing your applications are not holding
transactions open for extended periods of time preventing the garbage
collector from doing its cleanup.

If your applications are in the habit of holding transactions open for
extended periods of time, then it is possible that enough garbage can
be generated within a day to become noticeable.

And secondly, does 2.0

> handle garbage collection any better in this scenario (the FAQ suggested
> that this was something being resolved in 3.0)

Yes. Firebird 2 has a different on disk structure for indices which
makes it cheaper to remove duplicate chains from an index. See Release
notes p6, p56, p102 (according to printed page numbers, not reader
page numbers).

I am not sure what is planned with Firebird 3.