Re: Database growth problem

7/18/03 10:06:29 AM, "scott.marlowe" <scott.marlowe@ihs.com> wrote:

>On Thu, 17 Jul 2003, mlaks wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>  I have about 15 different PC's running RedHat 7.3 Linux, each running the
>> same database backed application (I use  Postgresql 7.2.1 for the database)
>> on each machine.
>
>Upgrade to 7.2.4 as soon as possible.  There are bugs in 7.2.3 and before
>that can cause data loss.
>
>> I also keep one machine slightly different than the others.
>>
>> On this machine, as a backup to the other machines, instead of just storing
>> files without deleting, I use a scheme that stores new files as they come in
>> but also deletes the oldest files from the RAID and also deletes the
>> corresponding entries describing those entries from the database. I use this
>> machine as an element of redundancy to recent files on the other machines.
>>
>> On this system, I keep the RAID about 75% full of files, and thus I imagine
>> that the Postgresql database should be about .75 of a GB in size. However,
it
>> isnt! I find that it keeps growing as time goes on. Its now about 3.9GB in
>> size!
>
>This sounds like index growth.  I'm guessing you're indexing on a field
>that only increments, and the btree is growing in one direction only.
>There's a fix in for 7.4 for this, but for now, all you likely need to do
>is reindex the index that keeps growing.

Just wondering ... Are you vacuuming the tables every now and then?  I
certainly didn't find out about it right away...