Hi Tom, et.al., So I changed the following settings in postgresql.conf file and restarted PostgreSQL and then proceeded with pg_restore: # new changes for this test-run log_statement = true sort_mem = 10240 # default 1024 vacuum_mem = 20480 # default 8192 # from before checkpoint_segments = 10 log_pid = true log_timestamp = true With these settings and running: pg_restore -vaOd dbname dbname.DUMP Things seem to progress better. The first of the large tables got COPY'ed within 1 hr 40 min: start: 2006-04-13 11:44:19 finish: 2006-04-13 13:25:36 I ended up ctrl-C'ing out of the pg_restore as the second large table was taking over 3 hours and the last PostgreSQL log entry was from over 2.5hrs ago, with message: 2006-04-13 14:09:29 [3049] LOG: recycled transaction log file "000000060000006B" Time for something different. Before attempting the same procedure with fsync off, I ran the following sequence of commands: $ dropdb dbname $ createdb dbname $ pg_restore -vsOd dbname dbname.DUMP $ date > db.restore ; pg_restore -vcOd dbname \ dbname.DUMP ; date >> db.restore $ cat db.restore Thu Apr 13 18:02:51 PDT 2006 Thu Apr 13 18:17:16 PDT 2006 That's just over 14 minutes! Ideas? Is this because the -c option drops all foreign keys and so the restore goes faster? Should this be the preferred, recommended and documented method to run pg_restore? Any drawbacks to this method? Thanks, --patrick On 4/12/06, Tom Lane <tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > "patrick keshishian" <pkeshish@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > My dev box is much slower hardware than the customer's > > server. Even with that difference I expected to be able to > > pg_restore the database within one day. But no. > > Seems a bit odd. Can you narrow down more closely which step of the > restore is taking the time? (Try enabling log_statements.) > > One thought is that kicking up work_mem and vacuum_mem is likely to > help for some steps (esp. CREATE INDEX and foreign-key checking). > And be sure you've done the usual tuning for write-intensive activity, > such as bumping up checkpoint_segments. Turning off fsync wouldn't > be a bad idea either. > > regards, tom lane