Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.182]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D1AC9FA5C5 for ; Tue, 2 Oct 2007 23:02:12 -0300 (ADT) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.182]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 57262-07 for ; Tue, 2 Oct 2007 23:01:59 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.5 Received: from smaug.vex.net (smaug.vex.net [208.76.104.132]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31F079FA43E for ; Tue, 2 Oct 2007 23:02:06 -0300 (ADT) Received: from dilbert (dilbert.druid.net [207.35.13.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smaug.vex.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2E8D91714B; Tue, 2 Oct 2007 22:02:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 22:02:01 -0400 From: "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" To: "Radhika S" Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org Subject: Re: Difference between Vacuum and Vacuum full Message-Id: <20071002220201.2722a499.darcy@druid.net> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.3 (GTK+ 2.10.13; i386--netbsdelf) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200710/16 X-Sequence-Number: 27038 On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 21:45:37 -0400 "Radhika S" wrote: > But this has bought me to the question of what exactly is the > difference between vacuum and vacuum full. If both give back free > space to the disk, then why have vacuum full. Not quite. "VACUUM FULL" returns space to the system. "VACUUM" only frees the space for use by the database. In most cases a simple VACUUM is all you need since you are going to just be asking for the space back anyway eventually as your database grows. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.