Migrate the entire database at once

Migrate smaller databases by dumping and restoring the entire database at once. This method works best on databases smaller than 100 GB. For larger databases, consider migrating your schema and data separately.

Warning

Depending on your database size and network speed, migration can take a very long time. You can continue reading from your source database during this time, though performance could be slower. To avoid this problem, fork your database and migrate your data from the fork. If you write to tables in your source database during the migration, the new writes might not be transferred to Timescale. To avoid this problem, see Live migration.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, check that you have:

Installed the PostgreSQL pg_dump and pg_restore utilities.
Installed a client for connecting to PostgreSQL. These instructions use psql, but any client works.
Created a new empty database in Timescale. For more information, see the Install Timescale section. Provision your database with enough space for all your data.
Checked that any other PostgreSQL extensions you use are compatible with Timescale. For more information, see the list of compatible extensions. Install your other PostgreSQL extensions.
Checked that you're running the same major version of PostgreSQL on both your target and source databases. For information about upgrading PostgreSQL on your source database, see the upgrade instructions for self-hosted TimescaleDB.
Checked that you're running the same major version of Timescale on both your target and source databases. For more information, see the upgrading Timescale section.

Note

To speed up migration, compress your data. You can compress any chunks where data is not being currently inserted, updated, or deleted. When you finish the migration, you can decompress chunks as needed for normal operation. For more information about compression and decompression, see Compression.

Migrating the entire database at once

Dump all the data from your source database into a dump.bak file, using your source database connection details. If you are prompted for a password, use your source database credentials:
```
pg_dump -U <SOURCE_DB_USERNAME> -W \
-h <SOURCE_DB_HOST> -p <SOURCE_DB_PORT> -Fc -v \
-f dump.bak <SOURCE_DB_NAME>
```
Connect to your Timescale database using your Timescale connection details. When you are prompted for a password, use your Timescale credentials:
```
psql “postgres://tsdbadmin:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>:<PORT>/tsdb?sslmode=require”
```
Prepare your Timescale database for data restoration by using timescaledb_pre_restore to stop background workers:
```
SELECT timescaledb_pre_restore();
```
At the command prompt, restore the dumped data from the dump.bak file into your Timescale database, using your Timescale connection details. To avoid permissions errors, include the --no-owner flag:
```
pg_restore -U tsdbadmin -W \
-h <CLOUD_HOST> -p <CLOUD_PORT> --no-owner \
-Fc -v -d tsdb dump.bak
```
At the psql prompt, return your Timescale database to normal operations by using the timescaledb_post_restore command:
```
SELECT timescaledb_post_restore();
```
Update your table statistics by running ANALYZE on your entire dataset:
```
ANALYZE;
```