Copying DBs?

[onthehustle]

I have several million hand spread across several DBs in 2 month increments (20 mil+). The DBs and Postgres are installed/reside on an external HD. My time is up on my current HD and bought a spanking new 1TB external.

Would it be possible to do a bit for bit copy of the existing external HD and install the backup on the new external HD with a program like acronis or driveimage and swap the data seemlessly?

Could I install Postgres on the new external HD along with the backup stat/hud files and such then paste the folders housing the DBs from the old external then in DB management browse for and find the old DBs?

If the 2 options above won't work then what would be the least painful way to acomplish the move?

Thx

[WhiteRider]

I'm pretty sure you'll need to re-install postgres rather than just copying the drive image, although someone may correct me on that.
Either way, you should make a backup of your databases before trying anything. Once you've done that you will always be able to recover them once you have postgres set up again.
See the Database / Postgres FAQ for a step by step backup guide. This thread also has links to posts about different ways of setting up / moving databases on different drives.

If you need further help please post back - kraada will be on later and he knows more about postgres setups than I do.

[kraada]

If you're using the external drive on the same system, a bit for bit copy, followed by a partition resizing, should do the trick, just make sure that the PostgreSQL server is stopped at the time you do the copy. The other method of backing up/reinstalling/restoring the database will certainly work as well, and honestly it might well be faster depending on how much other stuff you have on the hard drive (and then as a bonus you have a backup of your database). But the drive image will work so long as you have PostgreSQL completely stopped.

[onthehustle]

Might try the bit for bit image first. The original external is 320gig with 307 used so maybe a compressed bit-bit might be faster. I'll let you know how it works. Thx

[onthehustle]

Thought I'd take the time to follow up. What I ended up doing, which was also the fastest and most successful, was the following:

The external drive had a label of E

I left the old HD in E and set up the new external HD in F

Formatted the new HD in ntfs

I shut down Postgres (which runs on the external not my main drive)

Ran built in window pro backup and send the backup file to the new drive on F

When complete shut down and pulled on the old HD and left the new

I then set the new HD label to E to match the old (this was key)

Restored the backup and bada bing bada boom, Done

Moved 230 gigs of HHs to the new terabyte HD in about 12 hours.

[WhiteRider]

Thanks for the follow-up.