Re: Migration study, step 1: bulk write performance optimization

Mikael Carneholm wrote:

> I am responisble for an exciting project of evaluating migration of a
> medium/large application for a well-known swedish car&truck manufacturer
> ... The goal right now is to find the set of parameters that gives as
> short bulk insert time as possible, minimizing downtime while the data
> itself is migrated.

If you haven't explored the COPY command yet, check it out.  It is stunningly fast compared to normal INSERT commands.

   http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/static/sql-copy.html

pg_dump and pg_restore make use of the COPY command.  Since you're coming from a different vendor, you'd have to dump
thedata into a COPY-compatible set of files yourself.  But it will be worth the effort. 

Craig