Bill,
> If I deleted 75% of the rows but had a max_fsm_pages
> setting that still exceeded the pages required (as
> indicated in VACUUM output), would that solve my
> indexing problem or would I still need to REINDEX
> after such a purge?
Depends on the performance you're expecting. The FSM relates the the re-use
of nodes, not taking up free space. So after you've deleted 75% of rows,
the index wouldn't shrink. It just wouldn't grow when you start adding rows.
--
--Josh
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco