Re: Crash in postgres/linux on verly large database

Bernhard Ankenbrand <b(dot)ankenbrand(at)media-one(dot)de> writes:
> we have a table width about 60.000.000 entrys and about 4GB storage size.
> When creating an index on this table the whole linux box freezes and the
> reiser-fs file system is corrupted on not recoverable.

> Does anybody have experience with this amount of data in postgres 7.4.2?
> Is there a limit anywhere?

Many people run Postgres with databases far larger than that. In any
case a Postgres bug could not cause a system-level freeze or filesystem
corruption, since it's not a privileged process.

I'd guess that you are dealing with a hardware problem: flaky disk
and/or bad RAM are the usual suspects. See memtest86 and badblocks
as the most readily available hardware test aids.

regards, tom lane