This may seem like a good idea, but I've followed some discussions where it became clear it might not be the case. The misuse of this feature could actually be dangerous.
It's not really "support for incremental backups" as much as "within pg_basebackup". Other backup tools (such as pgBackRest) have had incremental backup support for quite some time, and more reliably, without this code.
I'm relaying information from others who are very knowledgeable about this. There are gotchas to this new feature:
- The filesystem has to POSIX compliant
- In order to rebuild the incrementals, they all need to be present in directories
- The feature adds no notion of a block structure, so each incremental must be laid on serially
It's unclear how useful this will be unless used by some very specific external tool that takes advantage of it.
Again, tools like pgBackRest has had incremental backup support for quite some time.
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[ 67.8 ms ] story [ 594 ms ] threadIt's not really "support for incremental backups" as much as "within pg_basebackup". Other backup tools (such as pgBackRest) have had incremental backup support for quite some time, and more reliably, without this code.
I'm relaying information from others who are very knowledgeable about this. There are gotchas to this new feature:
- The filesystem has to POSIX compliant - In order to rebuild the incrementals, they all need to be present in directories - The feature adds no notion of a block structure, so each incremental must be laid on serially
It's unclear how useful this will be unless used by some very specific external tool that takes advantage of it.
Again, tools like pgBackRest has had incremental backup support for quite some time.