Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.184]) by developer.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99FED2E0037 for ; Wed, 7 May 2008 17:16:02 -0300 (ADT) Received: from developer.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 20849-01 for ; Wed, 7 May 2008 17:15:55 -0300 (ADT) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from lists.commandprompt.com (host-159.commandprompt.net [207.173.203.159]) by developer.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EB3272E002D for ; Wed, 7 May 2008 17:15:58 -0300 (ADT) Received: from jd-laptop (cmdalert.com [69.55.229.115]) (authenticated bits=0) by lists.commandprompt.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m47KGmGc022565 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 7 May 2008 13:16:49 -0700 Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 13:16:35 -0700 From: "Joshua D. Drake" To: "David Wilson" Cc: "John Smith" , pgsql-general@postgresql.org Subject: Re: Backup/Restore of single table in multi TB database Message-ID: <20080507131635.436b6085@jd-laptop> In-Reply-To: References: Organization: Joshua D. Drake X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.4.0 (GTK+ 2.12.9; i486-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="Sig_/3S/2EzfhARb6dUMDHz.HiPU"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=PGP-SHA1 X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0 (lists.commandprompt.com [207.173.203.159]); Wed, 07 May 2008 13:16:49 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200805/240 X-Sequence-Number: 132639 --Sig_/3S/2EzfhARb6dUMDHz.HiPU Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, 7 May 2008 16:09:45 -0400 "David Wilson" wrote: > I'm fairly certain that you have to be very careful about doing simple > file copies while the system is running, as the files may end up out > of sync based on when each individual one is copied. I haven't done it > myself, but I do know that there are a lot of caveats that someone > with more experience doing that type of backup can hopefully point you > to. Besides the fact that it seems to be a fairly hacky thing to do... it is going to be fragile. Consider: (serverA) create table foo(); (serverB) create table foo(); (serverA) Insert stuff; (serverA) Alter table foo add column; Oops... (serverA) alter table foo drop column; You now have different version of the files than on serverb regardless of the table name. Joshua D. Drake =20 --=20 The PostgreSQL Company since 1997: http://www.commandprompt.com/=20 PostgreSQL Community Conference: http://www.postgresqlconference.org/ United States PostgreSQL Association: http://www.postgresql.us/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate --Sig_/3S/2EzfhARb6dUMDHz.HiPU Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=signature.asc -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIIg4jATb/zqfZUUQRApc0AJ0aAJcFUApUt8vfavAcIB4AYvVVSQCgpd7m ALH+e2F+Cp6FgCvNrzo+Am0= =nM2I -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Sig_/3S/2EzfhARb6dUMDHz.HiPU--