Demystifying Incremental Backups in the PostgreSQL Ecosystem
summary
Postgres 17 adds a WAL summarizer that writes small pg_wal_summaries at each checkpoint so tools can quickly list changed blocks. The incremental backup workflow uses pg_basebackup --incremental in plain format plus the previous backup’s manifest, and uses pg_combinebackup to reconstruct a full backup for restore. Practical tests on an 8.8 GB pgbench dataset show full backups compress to ~400–415 MB, incrementals to ~16–23 MB, and combining/restoring an 8 GB set takes ~9–11 seconds locally; important caveats are manifest retention, no compression in plain incremental mode, and careful retention/orchestration of the backup chain.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:04PostgreSQL 17 updates
- 5:10Incremental backups principle
- 7:16WAL Summerizer
- 10:26PGP Backup backups
- 13:59Restoration and dependencies
- 16:11Limitations and cautions
- 20:35Evergreen backup and orchestration
- 22:22Community backup tools
- 25:54PGP Backup vs PG Backrest
- 34:24Restore performance
- 35:29Best practices and warnings
- 37:01Resources and webinars
- 37:24Q&A
