Yes, it's normal in this situation to do a number in each transaction,
maybe a few thousand.
But the fact that copy doesn't work for you is a worry. Getting this
fixed seems like the best option.
Frank Morton wrote:
>
> We have been down this path, but I am at the point
> that I think this problem is so big, it makes postgreSQL
> unusable for me and could cause big problems for
> many of us with large databases. Especially if you
> need to reload your data, say, going to 6.5.
>
> I have a database that has a dozen or so tables, but
> one table in particular has about 60 fields that are all
> character fields ranging in size from 16 bytes to 128.
> This table has about 150,000 records. I have a text
> file with insert statements, one per line, that I feed
> through standard input to psql.
>
> I have tried many combinations of things to speed this
> up as you all have suggested. I have had no success
> using "copy" at all because of problems with quotes
> and other punctuation in the data.
>
> This last attempt, I bracket each insert statement with
> "begin;" and "end;".
>
> What I am seeing this time around is in the beginning,
> the inserts were reasonable in speed. Say 6 or 7
> per second. But now that it is up to record 100,000 or
> so (3 DAYS later) the time between inserts is about
> 10 SECONDS. As progress is made, the inserts
> continue to get slower and slower. So at the current
> rate, I have another 138 hours before completion!
>
> This is on a fast Red Hat 5.2 machine. Plenty of RAM,
> Ultra-wide scsi, 450 MHz Pentium II.
>
> No index tables exist in the database while reloading.
> I will build them after loading the data.
>
> My biggest fear is as this database continues to grow,
> headed toward 500,000 records or more, it seems that
> it will reach the point (I may already have) that the data
> can not ever be reloaded again, which is a scary
> situation.
>
> I'm still searching for help. Thanks.
--
Chris Bitmead
http://www.bigfoot.com/~chris.bitmead
mailto:chris.bitmead@bigfoot.com