PG 8.0.1 is getting slow in 24 hours. Only daily VACUUM FULL helps

Hi,
there is a very intensively used database. The "usage" means that there are
many-many changes in it. It is 24/7 application.

One table is used to insert 200+ rows per minute from a datacolletor driver
application. 200+ deletions are also performed on the same table. It is very
very important to complete the insertions within the one minute.

In other tables there are 56 rows inserted per minute and 224 updates are
performed.
Because of the quick gowing of the tables the old rows are rotated out from
the "production" tables into archive tables on a daily basis. Archive tables
are for select only. This rotation means ~76000 delete per day from the
"production" tables.

The critical tables are vacuum analyzed in every hour. (Not vacuum full
because of the several minutes long exclusive lock)

Earlier the system had been running for 3 months without problems, but a few
weeks ago suddenly it got slower and slower. By now I have to vacuum full
analyze the whole database almost every day to achieve the requested
performance.

The operating system is a Win2k adv. server, on a HP NetServer LC2000
(2xPIII1GHz + 2x36GB SCSI RAID1; 1GB RAM)

I know that Windows is blame... etc., but what about that 3 months perfect
runtime?

What could cause this issue?

Many thanks in advance.

Bye,
-- Csaba Együd

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