Re: PostgreSQL limitations question

Adrian Klaver <adrian(dot)klaver(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On 07/12/2012 12:39 AM, Craig Ringer wrote:
>> In that case, I'm not sure I understand what you were actually asking in
>> your initial question.

> I understood it to be asking about the conflict between the two
> statements below:

> Maximum Table Size 32 TB
> Maximum Rows per Table Unlimited

> If a table has a maximum size and rows have size then at some point you
> will reach a limit on number of rows per table.

I think the "unlimited" should be read as "you'll hit some other limit
first". For example, I trust no one would read that line as implying
that we can store more data than will fit on the machine's disks.
In the same way, it's not meant to suggest that the number of rows isn't
effectively limited by the max table size.

We could perhaps replace "unlimited" by the result of dividing the max
table size by the minimum row size. I'm not sure that would be
particularly helpful though, since most tables are probably a good deal
wider than the minimum row size, and so the effective limit would be
quite a bit less.

regards, tom lane