If you're shutting it down completely, then yes, just tar'ing and copying should work as long as the destination is a similar architecture (you can't go from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system with a file copy).
Actually I meant to said the original is a non WAL mode dev cluster so I will shut it down before starting the tar.
Also I would use pgdump but there is a known issue with this potentially not working with version of the application we are using & Postgres 8.4 (yes, an upgrade Project is underway!!!)
Austen
Austen Birchall Senior Database Administrator Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB United Kingdom