BIG files

Hi all Postgresql users,

I've been using MySQL for years and now I have decided to switch to Postgresql,
because I needed more robust "enterprise" features like views and triggers. I
work with VERY large datasets: 60 monthly tables with 700,000 rows and 99
columns each, with mostly large numeric values (15 digits) ( NUMERIC(15,0)
datatypes, not all filled). So far, I've migrated 2 of my tables to a dedicated
directory and tablespace in Postgres. I've created some views, triggers, run
queries, and let me tell you that performance is quite good after tweaking some
parameters in postgresql.conf. Now I'm very excited about all Postgresql
capabilities, and I want to switch right away.

The main problem is disk space. The database files stored in postgres take 4 or
5 times more space than in Mysql. Just to be sure, after each bulk load, I
performed a VACUUM FULL to reclaim any posible lost space, but nothing gets
reclaimed. My plain text dump files with INSERTS are just 150 Mb in size, while
the files in Postgres directory are more than 1 Gb each!!. I've tested other
free DBMS like Firebird and Ingres, but Postgresql is far more disk space
consumer than the others.

Disk space is a very relevant issue to me because harddisks are shared with
other people, and it is not posible to buy more hard disks right now.

I don't know about this but, is there any configuration parameter that I'm
missing, like page size or something? , or is it an OS problem?. What should I
look for?. I really like postgres, but if can't solve the space issue I would
have to stick to MySQL (which I don't want).

By the way, I'm working on a P4, 640 Mb RAM, with Win2K, Postgresql v8.0.3

Thanks in advance,
Rodrigo,
Chile

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