In response to Allan Kamau <allank@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > Sam Mason wrote: > > On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:13:14PM -0500, Marcelo Martins wrote: > > > >> is there a way to find out / calculate / estimate how big a pg_dump > >> using plain text format for a DB will be ? > >> > > > > How about simply doing: > > > > pg_dump | wc -c > > > > > > Sam > > > > > Hi Marcelo, > > If (using Sam's suggestion) the reported size of bytes is larger than > (or even close to) the current free space, you may want to plug in an > external drive (USB or otherwise) and mount it, then do the dump to it. > > If you intend to upgrade postgreSQL to 8.3.3, I think it may be > advisable to first install postgreSQL 8.3.3 hopefully from source as you > can have more control on where the executable will be placed (the idea > is to avoid at least initially overwriting the current executables for > postgres you have already deployed) use the --prefix=/your/path option > to facilitate isolated installation. Then use pg_dump (or pg_dumpall) of > the new postgreSQL installation to take the dump. In simpler words, use > 8.3.x pg_dump to make a dump of a running instance of postgreSQL 7.x for > later restore on postgreSQL 8.3.x. Also, you can probably use CLUSTER to get the DB size down to something manageable. If you CLUSTER one table at a time, you can probably start with the smaller tables and free up enough room to CLUSTER the larger tables. -- Bill Moran Collaborative Fusion Inc. http://people.collaborativefusion.com/~wmoran/ wmoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone: 412-422-3463x4023
