Re: PostgreSQL Portable

On Sep 10, 2014, at 2:00 PM, Daniel Begin <jfd553(at)hotmail(dot)com> wrote:

> First, I am a Newbie regarding PostgreSQL …
>
> I just started to look at PostgreSQL to implement a large GIS DB (1Tb). The data must reside in an external disk with eSATA connection and may be moved to different locations (and Windows desktops/laptops). I was looking to install PostgreSQL and PostGIS extensions on each PC (setting-up the proper PGDATA directory to the external disk) until I read about PostgreSQL and PgAdmin Portable …
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/pgadminportable/
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/postgresqlportable/

> Is that a viable alternative considering the expected size of the DB? Any comments or proposal would be appreciated .

Adding postgis to that, if it's not already included, might take some work. Not impossible but you'd be making some unneeded work for yourself.

The external disk isn't going to be blindingly fast, however you use it. For Windows in particular, it's probably going to be more conservative in caching the external drive than it would an internal one. Any large or unindexed queries are likely to be a bit painful.

I do use an external drive for some work, though, and it's usable. I have all of postgresql and the tools I use installed on the drive, with nothing for that instance installed on my laptop. I just have the external drives bin directory early in my PATH, so I can plug in the drive and do pg_ctl start, and it all works. That's on a mac, I'm sure you could do the same with Windows.

Cheers,
Steve