Re: Vacuum takes a really long time, vacuum full required

Max Baker <max(at)warped(dot)org> writes:
> I've been having problems maintaining the speed of the database in the
> long run. VACUUMs of the main tables happen a few times a day after maybe
> 50,000 or less rows are added and deleted (say 6 times a day).

> I have a whole lot (probably too much) indexing going on to try to speed
> things up.

> Whatever the case, the database still slows down to a halt after a month or
> so, and I have to go in and shut everything down and do a VACUUM FULL by
> hand. One index (of many many) takes 2000 seconds to vacuum. The whole
> process takes a few hours.

The first and foremost recommendation is to increase your FSM settings;
you seem to be using the defaults, which are pegged for a database size
of not more than about 100Mb.

Second is to update to PG 7.4. I think you are probably suffering from
index bloat to some extent, and 7.4 should help.

regards, tom lane