On Sat, 2005-10-22 at 07:39, Bryan Field-Elliot wrote:
> We have a huge database which must be backed up every day with
> pg_dump. The problem is, it takes around half an hour to produce the
> dump file, and all other processes on the same box are starved for
> cycles (presumably due to I/O) during the dump. It's not just an
> inconvenience, it's now evolved into a serious problem that needs to
> be addressed.
>
> Is there any mechanism for running pg_dump with a lower priority? I
> don't mind if the backup takes two hours instead of half an hour, as
> long as other processes were getting their fair share of cycles.
You could either set up plain old replication via slony / mammoth
replicator, and backup the slave, or setup Point in Time Recovery.