Re: Indexes on separate disk ?

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Ragnar_Kj=F8rstad?= <postgres(at)ragnark(dot)vestdata(dot)no> writes:
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 12:49:39PM -0700, Charlie Toohey wrote:
>> I've looked around a lot and don't think this is possible with Postgres, but
>> figured I would ask in case I missed something. Is it possible to configure
>> things so that an index resides on a separate disk ?

> Maybe you can just move it to a different filesystem and use a symlink?

That's pretty much the standard hack: shut down the postmaster, move the
file, create a symlink. However this is a fairly labor-intensive kluge.
Especially so if the file exceeds 1Gb, because then you will need to
deal with symlinking multiple segments --- and perhaps re-symlinking
them, if the size dips below a Gb boundary and then grows again.
Still, for sub-Gb-sized indexes it's certainly doable.

We hope to have a cleaner tablespace-based approach in a release or two.

BTW, I'd certainly recommend getting the WAL files (pg_xlog directory)
moved to their own drive long before you worry about separating indexes
from data. That's a lot simpler (you only need a symlink for the
directory).

regards, tom lane