Scott,
> Just to add to what the others have said here, you probably want to run
> the pg_autovacuum daemon in the background. It comes with 7.4 but will
> work fine with 7.3.
I don't recommend using pg_autovacuum with a data transformation task. pg_av
is designed for "regular use" not huge batch tasks.
--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco