Migrate with downtime

You use downtime migration to move less than 100GB of data from self-hosted database to a Timescale Cloud service.

Downtime migration uses the native PostgreSQL pg_dump and pg_restore commands. If you are migrating from self-hosted TimescaleDB, this method works for compressed hypertables without having to decompress data before you begin.

Important

If you want to migrate more than 400GB of data, create a Timescale Console support request, or send us an email at support@timescale.com saying how much data you want to migrate. We will pre-provision your Timescale Cloud instance for you.

However, downtime migration for large amounts of data takes a large amount of time. For more than 100GB of data, best practice is to follow live migration.

This page shows you how to move your data from a self-hosted database to a Timescale Cloud service using shell commands.

Best practice is to use an Ubuntu EC2 instance hosted in the same region as your Timescale Cloud service to move data. That is, the machine you run the commands on to move your data from your source database to your target Timescale Cloud service.

Before you move your data:

• Create a target Timescale Cloud service.

  Each Timescale Cloud service has a single database that supports the most popular extensions. Timescale Cloud services do not support tablespaces, and there is no superuser associated with a service. Best practice is to create a Timescale Cloud services with at least 8 CPUs for a smoother experience. A higher-spec instance can significantly reduce the overall migration window.

• To ensure that maintenance does not run while migration is in progress, best practice is to adjust the maintenance window.

• Install the PostgreSQL client tools on your migration machine.

  This includes psql, pg_dump, and pg_dumpall.

• Install the GNU implementation of sed.

  Run sed --version on your migration machine. GNU sed identifies itself as GNU software, BSD sed returns sed: illegal option -- -.

To move your data from a self-hosted database to a Timescale Cloud service: