Re: Slow Restoration of a template1 Database (ALTER GROUP)

"Ben Young" <Ben.Young@etrials.com> writes:
> Is the "index bloat" prevented/reduced in newer versions of Postgres?

Depends on what's causing it.  Have you been inventing alphabetically
greater group names and getting rid of smaller names over time?  If so,
this is a known problem that should be fixed in 7.4.  The 7.4 release
notes say:

     In previous releases, B-tree index pages that were left empty
     because of deleted rows could only be reused by rows with index
     values similar to the rows originally indexed on that page. In 7.4,
     VACUUM records empty index pages and allows them to be reused for
     any future index rows.

            regards, tom lane