Chapter 25. Backup and Restore

As with everything that contains valuable data, Postgres Pro databases should be backed up regularly. While the procedure is essentially simple, it is important to have a clear understanding of the underlying techniques and assumptions.

There are three fundamentally different approaches to backing up Postgres Pro data:

  • SQL dump

  • File system level backup

  • Continuous archiving

Each has its own strengths and weaknesses; each is discussed in turn in the following sections.