Re: Table update: restore or replace?

Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> writes:
> If you where to restore at the file level I would:
> 1) Stop the server.
> 2) Move the existing content of /var/lib/pgsql/10/data/ somewhere else 
> just to be safe.
> 3) Copy in the backup.

Yeah.  You can't just selectively copy files, because the data files
are dependent on the contents of the pg_xact transaction log; it's
all or nothing.

Also, I don't know what method you've been using to make file-level
backups, but they're really pretty worthless unless you (a) stop
the server or (b) use a filesystem snapshot.  Otherwise you're very
likely to have inconsistent data.

            regards, tom lane