Rob Fielding <rob@dsvr.net> writes:
> The intention is to migrate the DB from 7.2 to a later version. The
> interim has been to get up to the latest 7.2.4 release inorder to
> circumvent a vacuumdb corner case which was resulting in a FULL failing.
Hmm ... why do you feel that you have to do a VACUUM FULL before you
can dump and reload to go to a later version? AFAICS a vacuum in such a
context is just a waste of cycles. It's certainly not going to reduce
the size of the dump.
The problems you are describing sound like index bloat to me. If the
real issue is you haven't got enough disk space to do the dump, I'd
suggest dropping all your indexes, after making notes so you can
recreate them after finishing the upgrade.
regards, tom lane