Re: how much disk space does a VACUUM FULL take?

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:04 PM, john gale <john(at)smadness(dot)com> wrote:

> Does this suggest that VACUUM FULL needs free disk space on the order of
> the full size of the table that it's vacuuming to be able to complete? Or
> does it / can it write the filesystem files in the 1GB chunks stored in
> /base while removing the new "unused" files at the same time, thus
> requiring only a few GB of free space?
>

There are at least two tools out there that compact your table "live" by
arranging it such that the trailing pages of your table are empty (by
issuing trivial updates), and letting the standard vacuum truncate the file.

Start here:
http://www.depesz.com/2013/10/15/bloat-removal-without-table-swapping/