Re: How to upgrade PostgreSQL minor releases without a dump/restore?

On Thu, Mar 03, 2011 at 07:43:46PM -0800, Uwe Schroeder wrote:
>
> > > ? Did you read the paragraph above?
> > >
> > > Install latest version, and restart postmaster.
> >
> > Installing of latest version as-is will keep overwriting the existing
> > installed directories/files/binaries but not the "/usr/local/pgsql/data/"
> > directory right?  Since this is our production server database, am just
> > clarifying this question that came to my mind, before upgrading.
>
> For sake of safety, I'd always make a backup of the data directory. You don't
> need to dump/restore. Just copy the files someplace else and then do the
> update. In case something goes wrong you can always go back to your old
> version and just copy the backup to the data directory.
>
> That's how I do upgrades. Never needed the backup, but better to have one.
>
> Uwe
>
The "Just copy the files someplace else" can take a long, long
time for a large database and you need to have the database off-line
for the copy to be correct. Not really an option in many environments.

Cheers,
Ken