Re: PostgreSQL vs MySQL

On May 21, 2004, at 3:36 PM, Dan Langille wrote:

> On 21 May 2004 at 11:10, Jonathan Gardner wrote:
>
>> But local backups -- that's just weird. I've seen backups being made
>> locally, but then moved off the server on to some other data storage
>> device (hard disk, tape drive, CD ROM) on another server.
>
> Yes, that is what I'm talking about.
>

Someone could likely and easily write a script that is fed input from
pg_dump and is smart enough to "chunk" things out.  (ie, hit 30gigs,
write a tape, rinse, repeat)

One area though is fast recovery - Reloading a multi-GB db from a
pg_dump is painful, especially if you have foreign keys.  Lots of
sort_mem helps.

My plan for our informix->pg migration is to take advantage of the
LVM's snapshot feature.  Make a snapshot, backup the raw data.   This
way the time to recovery is simply how long it takes to load the backed
up data onto the server. No waiting for indexes & FK's.  It will use
more space on the backup media.  But that is the price you need to pay.
To PG it looks like a power failure or some other failure.

--
Jeff Trout <jeff@jefftrout.com>
http://www.jefftrout.com/
http://www.stuarthamm.net/