"Julian Scarfe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Do you have any rules of thumb for deciding when a pg_dumpall/restore is > likely to be faster than a vacuum full? Or perhaps more straightforwardly, > how would you expect the time required for a vacuum full to scale with pages > used and rows in the table?
There is a factor that's proportional to the number of tuples deleted, and a bigger factor that's proportional to the number of tuples moved while trying to compact the table. If you've got a seriously bloated table then it's fairly likely that *all* the surviving tuples will get moved because none of them are near the start of the table already :-( Having said that, though, a vacuum full and reindex on pg_class and pg_attribute will certainly solve Steve's problem faster than a dump and reload, simply because there's not much stuff in those catalogs compared to any reasonably-sized user tables. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])