Alex wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a test system that is setup the same as a production system and
> would like to frequently copy the database over.
> pg_dump takes a few hours and even sometimes hangs.
>
> Are there any reasons not to simply just copy the entire data directory
> over to the test system? I could not find any postings on the net
> suggesting otherwise. Is there anything to pay attention too ?
Yes. just shutdown production postmaster. Copy the entire data directory over to
test system.
Two system should be absolutely identical. Same architecture, preferrably same
OS, same postgresql client and server version etc.
Or investigate some of the asynchronous replication systems. That would save you
some time but will affect production performance a bit.
HTH
Shridhar