Received: from localhost (maia-3.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 095339FA0CC for ; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:45:36 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 23227-04 for ; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:45:20 -0400 (AST) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.4 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FE379F9DAD for ; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:45:19 -0400 (AST) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id kAUGj9Ui014249; Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:45:09 -0500 (EST) To: "Travis Whitton" cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org Subject: Re: pg_xlog on separate drive In-reply-to: References: Comments: In-reply-to "Travis Whitton" message dated "Thu, 30 Nov 2006 10:50:46 -0500" Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:45:09 -0500 Message-ID: <14248.1164905109@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200611/296 X-Sequence-Number: 26948 "Travis Whitton" writes: > Hey guys, sorry if this is slightly OT for this list, but I figure it's a > simple question. If I'm storing pg_xlog on a second non-redundant drive > using the symlink method and the journal drive were to crash, how difficult > is recovery? Will Postgresql simply be able to reinitialize the journal on a > new drive and carry on, or is there more to it than that? I realize any > pending transactions would be lost, but that's not a huge concern for me > because everything I'm importing comes from raw data. Losing xlog is pretty bad: there's a serious risk of data corruption, in that transactions made since your last checkpoint may be only partially applied. I wouldn't recommend a setup in which xlog is less redundant than your main storage array. regards, tom lane