Thread: How to estimate disk space requirements?

I have an application for PostgreSQL which may create some pretty huge
databases. I need some way to estimate how much physical disk space will
be required. I know the exact record structure and indexing schemes to
be used, and a rough idea of the number of rows I'll need. Given that,
how can I determine the physical disk space requirements?

Thanks in advance,

Bryan

Bryan Field-Elliot <bryan_lists@netmeme.org> writes:
> I have an application for PostgreSQL which may create some pretty huge
> databases. I need some way to estimate how much physical disk space will
> be required. I know the exact record structure and indexing schemes to
> be used, and a rough idea of the number of rows I'll need. Given that,
> how can I determine the physical disk space requirements?

It'd probably be easier to discuss this with a concrete example in hand.
How about you give us your info --- specific column datatypes, indexes
to be created, estimated update rate (so we can guess how many dead
tuples you might have at any given time).

            regards, tom lane

Bryan Field-Elliot writes:

> I have an application for PostgreSQL which may create some pretty huge
> databases. I need some way to estimate how much physical disk space will
> be required. I know the exact record structure and indexing schemes to
> be used, and a rough idea of the number of rows I'll need. Given that,
> how can I determine the physical disk space requirements?

There is some info in the FAQ.  You should estimate roughly five times the
size of the data in flat text.

--
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net   http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter