On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 11:03:40AM +0100, Simon Riggs wrote: > Well, there is a huge difference between file-level and block-level backup. > > Designing, writing and verifying block-level backup to the point that > it is acceptable is a huge effort. (Plus, I don't think accumulating > block numbers as they are written will be "low overhead". Perhaps > there was a misunderstanding there and what is being suggested is to > accumulate file names that change as they are written, since we > already do that in the checkpointer process, which would be an option > between 2 and 3 on the above list). > > What is being proposed here is file-level incremental backup that > works in a general way for various backup management tools. It's the > 80/20 first step on the road. We get most of the benefit, it can be > delivered in this release as robust, verifiable code. Plus, that is > all we have budget for, a fairly critical consideration. > > Big features need to be designed incrementally across multiple > releases, delivering incremental benefit (or at least that is what I > have learned). Yes, working block-level backup would be wonderful, but > if we hold out for that as the first step then we'll get nothing > anytime soon.
That is fine. I just wanted to point out that as features are added, file-level incremental backups might not be useful. In fact, I think there are a lot of users for which file-level incremental backups will never be useful, i.e. you have to have a lot of frozen/static data for file-level incremental backups to be useful. I am a little worried that many users will not realize this until they try it and are disappointed, e.g. "Why is PG writing to my static data so often?" --- then we get beaten up about our hint bits and freezing behavior. :-( I am just trying to set realistic expectations. -- Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + Everyone has their own god. + -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers