Thread: Is it possible to compress a table any further?

I have very large database that is in postgresql and in particular one table
that take up too much space. I know that in mysql one can compress
individual tables with isam-compression. I understand that postgresql
compresses text automatically, is there anyway to compress my large table
any further?

Cheers.
Vanessa
--
View this message in context:
http://www.nabble.com/Is-it-possible-to-compress-a-table-any-further--tf3237859.html#a8999365
Sent from the PostgreSQL - general mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 10:04:44PM -0800, vanessa wrote:
> I have very large database that is in postgresql and in particular one
> table that take up too much space.

How are you determining what "too much space" is?  How are you
measuring how much space the table takes up, how much space are you
expecting it to take up, and how did you arrive at that expectation?

> I know that in mysql one can compress individual tables with
> isam-compression. I understand that postgresql compresses text
> automatically, is there anyway to compress my large table any
> further?

Let's understand the problem before looking for a solution.  What's
the table definition?  How many rows are in the table?  How much
physical space does the table take up?  How many indexes does the
table have?

One situation that can cause table bloat is not vacuuming enough.
How often are you vacuuming the table?  Does it receive a lot of
updates and/or deletes?  Have you done a full-database VACUUM VERBOSE
to see if your free space map settings need to be adjusted?  What
version of PostgreSQL are you running?

--
Michael Fuhr