Re: a provocative question? - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: a provocative question?
Date
Msg-id 734.1189105767@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to a provocative question?  (TJ O'Donnell <tjo@acm.org>)
Responses Re: a provocative question?  (Kenneth Downs <ken@secdat.com>)
List pgsql-general
"TJ O'Donnell" <tjo@acm.org> writes:
> I ran across this quote on Wikipedia at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_%28e-mail_client%29
> "Text files are also much safer than databases, in that should disk
> corruption occur, most of the mail is likely to be unaffected, and any
> that is damaged can usually be recovered."

This is mostly FUD.  You can get data out of a damaged database, too.
(I'd also point out that modern filesystems are nearly as complicated
as databases --- try getting your "simple" text files back if the
filesystem metadata is fried.)

In the end there is no substitute for a good backup policy...

            regards, tom lane

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