Joshua Daniel Franklin <joshuadfranklin@yahoo.com> writes:
> Perhaps I wasn't clear. There really aren't any (daily) "no-longer needed
> tuples", just added ones. I am under the impression that vacuum is just for
> freeing up tuples to be re-used, so the only time it needs to be run is after
> the 6-monthly tuple massacre, at which time I would also need to set
> max_fsm_pages to a huge number.
If you do VACUUM FULL after each "tuple massacre" (which you'd better,
since the point AFAICT is to cut the total disk space used by the file)
then there's not really any need for bumping up max_fsm_pages. The
post-vacuum-full state of the table isn't going to have a whole lot
of embedded free space ...
regards, tom lane