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From: Chander Ganesan <chander@otg-nc.com>
To: Arnold, Sandra <ArnoldS@osti.gov>
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org <pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: The OS Command for pg_hotbackup -- Use lvmsnapshot instead of tar cvzf
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:09:33 -0500
Message-ID: <4B8D545D.80405@otg-nc.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <54E5385D47A89542BC678F5426799F3904961EF60F@OSTIEX01.osti.gov>
References: <54E5385D47A89542BC678F5426799F3904961EF60F@OSTIEX01.osti.gov>

Arnold, Sandra wrote:
> I am currently using the pg_hotbackup Perl script to backup my 
> production PostgreSQL database.  However, the next production database 
> is going to be close to a terrabyte in size.  We feel that a tar cvzf 
> command is not the correct OS backup solution to use.  Instead we 
> would like to use lvmsnapshot.  Is anyone using the pg_hotbackup 
> script but instead of the tar cvzf OS command are they using lvmsnapshot?
I believe that if you take an LVM snapshot and the change size exceeds 
the snapshot size (a configurable value) then the snapshot gets 
released, so you might want to be careful with this solution (I don't 
know how much data you accumulate, or how fast you accumulate it, or if 
that rate changes, etc.).  You'll also need to ensure that you snapshot 
any and all tablespaces (if you use pg_start_backup() first the 
snapshots need not be simultaneous, but they still must be done).

You might consider using rsync instead, it should be a lot faster than 
tar, and doesn't have the same downside as using snapshots.  You'll also 
find that it is fairly widely used in the PostgreSQL community.

-- 
Chander Ganesan
Open Technology Group, Inc.
One Copley Parkway, Suite 210
Morrisville, NC  27560
919-463-0999/877-258-8987
http://www.otg-nc.com
Expert PostgreSQL, Python, PHP, and other open source training.




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  Subject: Re: The OS Command for pg_hotbackup -- Use lvmsnapshot instead of tar cvzf
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