Which pgdump format is best for small storage size

Question

This a first time foray in PostgreSQL backups (db dumps) and I've been researching the different pgdump formats, other pgdump options, and pgdumpall. For a Postgres beginner looking at taking an hourly dump (will overwrite previous dump) of two databases that contain table triggers and two different schemas in each db, what would be the backup format and options to easily achieve the following:

1. Small file size (single file per db or ability to choose which db to restore)
2. Easy to restore as clean db (with & without same db name[s])
3. Easy to restore on different server (user maybe different)
4. Triggers are disabled on restore and re-enabled after restore.

Include example commands to backup and restore.

Any other helpful pgdump/pgrestore suggestions welcome.

Answer 1

This command will create a small dmp file which includes only structure of the dattabase - tabels, columns, triggers, views etc.. (This command will just take few minutes)

pg_dump -U "dbuser" -h "host" -p "port" -F c -b -v -f ob_`date +%Y%m%d`.dmp dbname

**ex:** pg_dump -U thames -h localhost -p 5432 -F c -b -v -f ob_`date +%Y%m%d`.dmp dbname

This command will take the backup of complete database

pg_dump -h localhost -U "dbuser" "dbname" -Fc > "pathfilename.backup"

**ex:** pg_dump -h localhost -U thames thamesdb - Fc > "thamesdb.backup"

and for restore you can use:

pg_restore -i -h localhost -U "user" -d "dbname" -v "dbname.backup"

**ex:** pg_restore -i -h localhost -U thames -d thamesdb -v "thamesdb.backup"

to take backup of selected tabels(uses regular expressions) here

pg_dump -t '(A|B|C)'

for full details you can visit pgdump help page there are many options out there

Answer 2

If you want to take your backups hourly, I would think you should be using log archiving instead of pg_dump.