I have an app, which cycles through a huge number of records in a database table and performs a number of SQL and .Net operations on records within that database (currently I am using Castle.ActiveRecord on PostgreSQL).

I added some basic btree indexes on a couple of the feilds, and as you would expect, the peformance of the SQL operations increased substantially. Wanting to make the most of dbms performance I want to make some better educated choices about what I should index on all my projects.

I understand that there is a detrement to performance when doing inserts (as the database needs to update the index, as well as the data), but what suggestions and best practices should I consider with creating database indexes? How do I best select the feilds/combination of fields for a set of database indexes (rules of thumb)?

Also, how do I best select which index to use as a clustered index? And when it comes to the access method, under what conditions should I use a btree over a hash or a gist or a gin (what are they anyway?).