Re: Is my database now too big?

Darren Reed wrote:
> I'm starting to wonder if my database has finally grown too big for my
> computer.
>
> But, rather than peform badly, I see a number of "bad things" happen:
>
> * pg_dump fails to run, causing an "out of memory" error (I don't
> understand
>   why this happens, but it does);
>
> * restarting postgres across a reboot results in tables disappearing
>   without any error messages being given out (this is *really
>   disturbing*.)

Are you vacuuming?

>
> postgres itself, however, starts up fine.
>
> "wc -l" of the output from the last successuful dump_all is around
> 8million
> lines, spread across half a dozen or so tables.
>
> I'm afraid that if I restructure the db to have smaller tables, I'd just
> be
> putting off "hitting" the ceiling.
>
> What can I safely do to get postgres running normally?
>
> I'm currently using 8.1.3, will I fare any better with a more recent
> version?
>
> My end goal is to have maybe 50 million records.  Will postgresql handle
> this
> (with only 1.5GB of RAM) or do I need to look elsewhere for a db of this
> size?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Darren
>
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