Yeah, DROP PARTITION is definitely going to be much more efficient than DELETE + cleanup. No doubt about that. Not sure what postgresql.conf tuning you've trie

Yeah, DROP PARTITION is definitely going to be much more efficient than DELETE + cleanup. No doubt about that. Not sure what postgresql.conf tuning you've tried, but in general we recommend making autovacuum more frequent, but performing the cleanup in smaller chunks. Also, batching inserts usually helps a lot. But maybe you've already tried all that. There's definitely a limit - a balance between ingestion and cleanup.