> Okay, this *used* to be a problem way way back, but I definitely don't
> vacuum my databases nightly ... most times I don't do it until something
> odd comes up that I figure that I may as well vacuum first to see if it
> makes a differnece ...
> vacuum'ng once a week, unless you one helluva insert/update/delete
> intensive table ...
Well this is where the problem is. The whole Vacuum thing is not bad for
most people as it allows doing things like reclaiming space and gathering
some statistics, during off-peak times, and also to run it less frequently
on databases that don't change often. The problem is for those who have
24/7 continuous use of the database, combined with a high frequency of
insert/update/delete, so that vacuuming regularly becomes a necessity.
> v7.0beta5, with a table that has *over* 5miillion tuples:
> pgsql% time psql -c "vacuum" postgresql
> VACUUM
> 0.000u 0.022s 2:46.67 0.0% 0+0k 0+0io 0pf+0w
That certainly is good. I look forward to installing a non-beta version 7
in place of the current latest 6 and testing! Don't forget it depends not
only how big the table is in tuples, but how many bytes, how many index,
etc.. Also the "analyze" option takes a while longer as you know
- Andrew