Chapter 26. Backup and Restore (original) (raw)

Development Versions:devel

As with everything that contains valuable data, PostgreSQL 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 PostgreSQL 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.