Azim On Fri, Feb 9, 2018 at 6:36 PM, Azimuddin Mohammed <azimeiu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hello I have a question regrading initdb, > My understanding of initdb is when we execute it it will create the > directory structure in /data. > My question is when we run initdb when we already have a database running > and for some reason I run this command what happens to my existing actual > data does it get flushed out ? In that case what is the best practice here? I think initdb refuses to run when given an existent non empty directory, but cannot find anything in its doc page... Ok, after a little googling I've found "initdb will refuse to run if the data directory exists and already contains files; this is to prevent accidentally overwriting an existing installation." in the server setup / creating cluster docs ( https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/creating-cluster.html ). Francisco Olarte.