Moving database to external SSD

[wangmanthewang]

Hey guys,

This is my first post so I apologize if it's redundant/posted in the wrong place. I'm trying to move my PT4 database to an external SSD, but all of the instructions I found on this topic were dealing with Windows, not macOS. (I am running macOS 10.13.6 if it matters.)
What are the steps that I need to take in order to do this? Does PT4/PostgreSQL need to be moved to my external SSD, or can I keep both of these programs on my computer and simply have the database itself on the SSD?
FWIW I already have a backup of my database on my SSD. My database itself is 100GB, but the backup is only 50GB; I'm not sure if this is a red flag or not.

Thank you for the help.

[Flag_Hippo]

As long as the backup file was created using PokerTracker 4 then you can uninstall PostgreSQL and reinstall it to the external drive (you can leave PokerTracker 4 where it is) . You can also reinstall PostgreSQL on the SSD and then have PostgreSQL create the database cluster on the external drive (when you tell PostgreSQL where to create the 'data' folder).

There is a guide for uninstalling PostgreSQL here and then you can manually download and install PostgreSQL from here. Using a Mac administrator account or administrative privileges install that PostgreSQL and for the password boxes use "dbpass" (no quotes) which is what PokerTracker 4 uses by default. Once PostgreSQL installs successfully and PokerTracker 4 is running you can restore your database from your backup file.

[wangmanthewang]

As long as the backup file was created using PokerTracker 4 then you can uninstall PostgreSQL and reinstall it to the external drive (you can leave PokerTracker 4 where it is) . You can also reinstall PostgreSQL on the SSD and then have PostgreSQL create the database cluster on the external drive (when you tell PostgreSQL where to create the 'data' folder).

Thanks for your reply. Would you be able to briefly comment on which option of the two you outlined (i.e. install PostgreSQL to my external drive vs. install PostgreSQL on my mac and creating database cluster on external drive) would be more optimal in terms of processing speed, database management, etc?

[Flag_Hippo]

Installing PostgreSQL on the main drive would be more optimal however with regards to having data on an external drive I should also mention that disconnecting it without stopping the PostgreSQL server and ejecting the disk could cause database corruption which might be unrecoverable so it would be better to move other files to your external drive depending on what is taking up the space. Also anything less than a USB 3.0 connection on the drive/laptop may not be fast enough to get data to PokerTracker 4.

[wangmanthewang]

I appreciate your response and guidance. For personal reasons, I'd prefer to keep my poker things on my external SSD, so I ended up electing to install PostgreSQL on the external drive. (Also, I made sure my equipment would be able to handle faster transfer speeds as you recommended - I have a Samsung T5 Portable SSD which should be OK.) However, when I attempted to install it (PostgreSQL 12.1) today, I received an error message that said "Installation may not complete correctly. Database cluster initialisation failed". I followed all the steps outlined in your previously linked guide when uninstalling PostgreSQL. Any way you could help me resolve this?

[Flag_Hippo]

Make sure you followed this guide for uninstalling PostgreSQL and then download and install PostgreSQL v9.6 from here instead of v12.1. If that version doesn't install successfully there should be a log file of the failed install on your computer. Check your /tmp/ directory for a file(s) called "install-postgresql.log", "initdb.log" or something with "bitrock", "postgresql" or "postgres" in the name and send us that file(s) in a Support Ticket. 

[wangmanthewang]

Had the same issue. just submitted a support ticket