Re: TOAST tables keeps growing!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Stephan Szabo
> Sent: 13. august 2004 19:36
> To: Thomas Madsen
> Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [ADMIN] TOAST tables keeps growing!
>
>
> On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Thomas Madsen wrote:
>
> > I'm running a production server with PostgreSQL version 7.2.1, that
> > does
>
> You really should upgrade.  If not to 7.4.x, at least to the
> last 7.2 release.

Yes I know, I'm painfully aware of the need to upgrade :))

> > The problem is that TOAST tables keeps springing forth and consume
> > disk space. We do a VACUUM every night, but it does not
> reduce or stop
> > the TOAST table growth.
> >
> > I searched the mailing list for answers to this problem, but found
> > only other people describing the same problem. Namely, that their
> > max_fsm_pages were too low and that postgresql now has lost
> track of
> > the surplus TOAST data pages.
> >
> > In our postgresql.conf we ourselves had the default value
> of 10000 for
> > max_fsm_pages, which I have now raised to around a million. I
> > restarted psql and did a vacuum to see if that would reduce
> the disk
> > usage, but no change was seen.
>
> Generally, raising fsm and revacuuming (without full) will
> mean that more of the space will get re-used so that it
> should stop growing from day to day, but it's not really
> going to remove space already taken (excepting blank pages at
> the end if it can get appropriate locks I think).
>
> Vacuum Full should remove the blank space at the cost of an
> exclusive lock on the table.

Thanks, vacuum full on the table itself worked just perfect! ;)

Cheers,
Thomas.