Alexander Stanier <alexander.stanier@egsgroup.com> writes:
  

I am currently trying to separate two environments contained in one 
database. Essentially I need to break that one database down into two 
with a portion of the data going to each new database. I am intending to 
achieve this by duplicating the database and then stripping out the data 
that is not required in each database. I have started by trying to 
delete data from a set of 28 related tables, however the performance 
appears to be terrible. I am deleting from a table called document which 
cascades down to 27 tables underneath it linked by various cascading 
foreign key constraints. Some of these subsidiary tables have as many as 
a couple of million records.
    

Do you have indexes on the referencing columns?  PG enforces an index on
the referenced column, but not on the other end, and DELETE is where it
will hurt if you haven't got one.

			regards, tom lane