--- doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuum.sgml 2007-02-01 00:26:04.000000000 +0100 +++ /tmp/vacuum.sgml 2007-05-15 18:32:14.000000000 +0200 @@ -164,8 +164,8 @@ The option is not recommended for routine use, but might be useful in special cases. An example is when you have deleted - most of the rows in a table and would like the table to physically shrink - to occupy less disk space. VACUUM FULL will usually + or updated most of the rows in a table and would like the table to physically shrink + to occupy less disk space and allow faster table scans. VACUUM FULL will usually shrink the table more than a plain VACUUM would. The option does not shrink indexes; a periodic REINDEX is still recommended. In fact, it is often faster --- doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml 2007-05-03 17:47:48.000000000 +0200 +++ /tmp/maintenance.sgml 2007-05-15 18:29:29.000000000 +0200 @@ -157,7 +157,8 @@ command. This uses a more aggressive algorithm for reclaiming the space consumed by dead row versions. Any space that is freed by VACUUM FULL is immediately returned to the - operating system. Unfortunately, this variant of the + operating system, and the table data is physically compacted on + the disk. Unfortunately, this variant of the VACUUM command acquires an exclusive lock on each table while VACUUM FULL is processing it. Therefore, frequently using VACUUM FULL can @@ -168,12 +169,15 @@ The standard form of VACUUM is best used with the goal of maintaining a fairly level steady-state usage of disk space. If - you need to return disk space to the operating system you can use + you need to return disk space to the operating system, you can use VACUUM FULL — but what's the point of releasing disk space that will only have to be allocated again soon? Moderately frequent standard VACUUM runs are a better approach than infrequent VACUUM FULL runs for maintaining - heavily-updated tables. + heavily-updated tables. However, if some heavily-updated tables + have gone too long with infrequent VACUUM, you can + use VACUUM FULL to get performance back (it is much + slower to scan a table containing almost only dead rows).