Re: VACUUM FULL on 24/7 server

aserba@gmail.com (Aleksey Serba) wrote:
>    Hello!
>
>    I have 24/7 production server under high load.
>    I need to perform vacuum full on several tables to recover disk
>    space / memory  usage frequently ( the server must be online during
>    vacuum time )

The main thought is: "Don't do that."

It is almost certainly the wrong idea to do a VACUUM FULL.

Assuming that the tables in question aren't so large that they cause
mass eviction of buffers, it should suffice to do a plain VACUUM (and
NOT a "VACUUM FULL") on the tables in question quite frequently.

If the tables _are_ rather large, then you might want to look into the
"lazier" vacuum patch which causes the vacuum process to sleep once in
a while so as to diminish the "eviction" effects.  A version of this
was proposed for 7.3, and I know Jan Wieck has had a patch for 7.4.
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