On Wed, Jun 5, 2024 at 5:52 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 2024-06-04 at 11:32 -0400, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > I would not set "fsync" to off. It won't make a measurable difference for
> > pg_restore, and it may break your database. The same applies to "full_page_writes".
>
> If the pg_restore fails, I'm dropping the database no matter what. A few more minutes
> to drop $PGDATA and re-run initdb won't be noticed compared to the length of the pg_restore.
The *cluster* would be corrupted.
You'd have to start with a new "initdb".
If you want that... but it is a high price for very moderate gains.
This is a brand new instance with zero databases.
If the pg_restore which creates that one database fails for some reason, I just restart the pg_restore. In the unlikely event that the VM crashes or becomes corrupt, doing an initdb and creating all the users again adds 10 minutes to the 7 hour pg_restore. That's "line noise" compared to the variability in performance of the VM, SAN and network.
> > What might make a difference is if you use the --single-transaction option of
> > pg_restore.
>
> A single 4+TB transaction??
Yes, sure. Why not?
"Giant transactions bad, small transactions good", right? It's been drilled into me for 35 years.
