What is the unit of PostgreSQL shared_buffers?

postgresql

Solution

For `shared_buffers` setting, you can specify the unit, e.g.

shared_buffers = 3840MB

In official documentation, it says:

Avoid integers--you need to know the underlying unit to figure out what they mean.

p.s. Recommended value = 25% of available memory

Reference:

- https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Tuning_Your_PostgreSQL_Server

- http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/runtime-config-resource.html

- http://samiux.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/howto-performance-tuning-for-postgresql-on-ubuntudebian/

Problem

I want to change my pgsql database config and I wonder what units they use there to describe some values. Mostly I want to know about shared_buffers. There is no specified unit of this value, just the provided number. If my shared_buffers value is for example 16384, is it kB? mB? Bytes? What is the unit of this value?

Original source