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Date: Wed, 5 May 2010 12:42:10 +0100
From: Brett Parker <iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk>
To: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Table space grow big - PostgreSQL
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On 05 May 13:36, Khangelani Gama wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> 
> Please assist on this scenario, I am a junior DBA, perhaps the
> question I have is too simple please bear with me.
> 
> I have a server with one PostgreSQL database and the data reside in
> /usr/local/pgsql/data/ running on Redhat 9 O/S.

<snippage class="lots" />
 
> The main question I have is: What makes the
> /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/95186722/  grow so big while the actual
> data with its schema is only 2.8G and that is there a way to reduce
> the table space sizes or anything related to that?

OK - what version of postgres would be a good starting question...

But, at a guess, I'd say you have a fair amount of table churn, and that
you're probably due running a VACUUM FULL over the database that is
using the most space, it may fail, but if it does it should tell you
what bit of config you'll need to change to make it work.

The other possible usage of lots of space is indexes on the database
tables, these are not included in the dump, and so the size of the dump
doesn't accurately reflect the size of the on disc data.

Hope that gives you somewhere to start from.

Thanks,
-- 
Brett Parker