In response to Allan Kamau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

> Sam Mason wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:13:14PM -0500, Marcelo Martins wrote:
> >   
> >> is there a way to find out / calculate / estimate how big a pg_dump  
> >> using plain text format for a DB will be ?
> >>     
> >
> > How about simply doing:
> >
> >   pg_dump | wc -c
> >
> >
> >   Sam
> >
> >   
> Hi Marcelo,
> 
> If (using Sam's suggestion) the reported size of bytes is larger than 
> (or even close to) the current free space, you may want to plug in an 
> external drive (USB or otherwise) and mount it, then do the dump to it.
> 
> If you intend to upgrade postgreSQL to 8.3.3, I think it may be 
> advisable to first install postgreSQL 8.3.3 hopefully from source as you 
> can have more control on where the executable will be placed (the idea 
> is to avoid at least initially overwriting the current executables for 
> postgres you have already deployed) use the --prefix=/your/path option 
> to facilitate isolated installation. Then use pg_dump (or pg_dumpall) of 
> the new postgreSQL installation to take the dump. In simpler words, use 
> 8.3.x pg_dump to make a dump of a running instance of postgreSQL 7.x for 
> later restore on postgreSQL 8.3.x.

Also, you can probably use CLUSTER to get the DB size down to something
manageable.  If you CLUSTER one table at a time, you can probably start
with the smaller tables and free up enough room to CLUSTER the larger
tables.

-- 
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.
http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Phone: 412-422-3463x4023

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