Tom Lane wrote: > Brandon Craig Rhodes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > And the disputed point: > > > - If the drive holding the WAL fails, then the database engine > > will shut down cleanly by writing everything in RAM out to > > the real database tables, and no data will be lost. > > Whoever claimed that has no familiarity with the code at all, and no > understanding of the basic WAL rule: write to the log BEFORE you write > data. > > In point of fact, loss of the WAL drive will mean a database PANIC stop > and probably a corrupt data area afterwards, since there'd be no > guarantee that related page updates had all made it to disk.
Also the WAL files might be recyled at each checkpoint, which is at least every five minutes, so pg_xlog will not contain all the WAL files from the backup, unless you are using point-in-time recovery --- this might be where you got confused. -- Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
