public inbox for [email protected]  
help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Paul Smith* <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: VACUUM/ANALYZE Strategy for Low-Activity PostgreSQL 15 Instance
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2026 09:39:23 +0000
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <DU0PR08MB79216D7A1EBC77E66899D508A68EA@DU0PR08MB7921.eurprd08.prod.outlook.com>
References: <DU0PR08MB79216D7A1EBC77E66899D508A68EA@DU0PR08MB7921.eurprd08.prod.outlook.com>

On 13/01/2026 08:19, Gabriel Guillem Barceló Soteras wrote:
> Hi,
> We have a healthy PostgreSQL 15 instance (installed from the official 
> Postgres repository) running on Red Hat 9. It serves several databases 
> for internal SMB applications. The environment is stable—apps perform 
> well, disk usage is fine, and the system is not under heavy load.
>
> After integrating PostgreSQL into our monitoring system, I noticed 
> warnings related to VACUUM and ANALYZE. Some tables have never 
> undergone these maintenance operations, or the last run was 30–200 
> days ago. These databases have very few deletions, and many tables 
> show no growth at all—typical for internal SMB apps.
> I know this topic comes up often, but should I schedule a monthly 
> VACUUM + ANALYZE via a cron or systemd timer, while still keeping 
> autovacuum enabled?
>
> We’re also monitoring table bloat, which is currently under 1%, 
> suggesting that manual intervention may not be necessary and that 
> autovacuum is doing its job when needed.
>
You would normally not need to do anything manually - autovacuum is 
sufficient. The main times anything else may be needed is if you do a 
mass delete or update, in which case the autovacuum may not be updating 
"quick enough" or you may want to do a "vacuum full" to recover disk space.

What is your monitoring system looking at that is making it generate 
those warnings? You need to see what criteria it is using, and then 
decide whether those matter to you, or if they're false warnings that 
need adjusting somehow.


Paul


reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
  Subject: Re: VACUUM/ANALYZE Strategy for Low-Activity PostgreSQL 15 Instance
  In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox