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PG.CENTER connects PostgreSQL documentation, reference, and ecosystem knowledge. Maintained by Pigsty.

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Development versions: 19 / devel
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Historical version. PostgreSQL 8.2 reached end of support in December 2011. See the current version for supported releases.

Chapter 23. Backup and Restore

As with everything that contains valuable data, PostgreSQL databases should be backed up regularly. While the procedure is essentially simple, it is important to have a basic understanding of the underlying techniques and assumptions.

There are three fundamentally different approaches to backing up PostgreSQL data:

  • SQL dump

  • File system level backup

  • Continuous archiving

Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

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Read the upstream documentation. For corrections, first check the current version.