Re: VACUUMing sometimes increasing database size /

In response to "Nitin Verma" <nitinverma(at)azulsystems(dot)com>:

> $ ls -al pgsqldb/pg_xlog
> total 32816
> drwx------ 2 nitinverma root 4096 Jun 16 19:53 .
> drwx------ 6 nitinverma root 4096 Jun 16 19:33 ..
> -rw------- 1 nitinverma root 16777216 Jun 16 20:08 0000000000000001
> -rw------- 1 nitinverma root 16777216 Jun 16 19:45 0000000000000002
>
> Looks like if a WAL file is created even vacuum can't reclaim the space. Is
> that the root cause behind DB bloating with 7.3.2?

All versions of Postgresql generate WAL logs. This is not bloat, this is
space required for normal operation of the database system.

I believe the defaults are to create 4 files, 16M each, and then rotate
through them. If you've only got two files so far, this must be a
fairly new installation.

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/wal-configuration.html

--
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.