Message-ID: <48F5C25F.3050108@postnewspapers.com.au>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:13:51 +0800
From: Craig Ringer <craig@postnewspapers.com.au>
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To: Ivan Voras <ivoras@freebsd.org>
Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Backup strategies
References: <48F4D693.9000304@lerner.co.il> <gd4d7q$3ed$1@ger.gmane.org>
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Ivan Voras wrote:

> Warning: DO NOT do on-the-fly binary backups without snapshots.
> Archiving the database directory with tar on a regular file system,
> while the server is running, will result in an archive that most likely
> won't work when restored.

You can do non-snapshot-based filesystem level backups with
pg_start_backup() and pg_stop_backup() as part of a PITR setup. See:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/continuous-archiving.html

That's the setup I use, with a full backup taken weekly and WAL files
archived from then until the next full backup. There is always at least
one full backup at any time in case a backup fails, and I can roll back
in time for a minimum of a week if anything goes wrong.

I also include plain SQL dumps from pg_dump in the nightly disaster
recovery backups.

--
Craig Ringer