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PostgreSQL data directory migration — 2026-04-11

Summary

Moved the pg16 cluster data directory from the root partition to /mnt/ursa to free disk pressure. No schema changes, no data loss.

Before

  • /var/lib/postgresql/16/main — 17 GB on /dev/nvme1n1p3 (root, was 99% full)
  • pg16 cluster postgresql@16-main.service (Debian/Ubuntu packaged postgres)

After

  • /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/postgres/16/main — 17 GB on /dev/sdj1 (ursa, 36% used)
  • Same cluster, same connection string, same port 5433

Procedure

  1. Stopped TerraPulse API (killed uvicorn on 8111)
  2. Stopped pg16: sudo systemctl stop postgresql@16-main.service
  3. Created target dir: sudo mkdir -p /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/postgres/16 (chown postgres:postgres, chmod 700)
  4. rsync: sudo rsync -aAX /var/lib/postgresql/16/main/ /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/postgres/16/main/
    • 1,341 files, 18.1 GB, 65s
  5. Backed up config: cp postgresql.conf postgresql.conf.bak-2026-04-11
  6. Edited /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf:
    • data_directory = '/mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/postgres/16/main'
  7. Started pg16: sudo systemctl start postgresql@16-main.service
  8. Verified health: psql connection, observation count (46.7M), latest row timestamps
  9. Restarted TerraPulse API
  10. Verified API /health, /observations, /pulse/recent endpoints
  11. Waited, verified new WAL segments being written to ursa, observation count growing
  12. Deleted old data dir: sudo rm -rf /var/lib/postgresql/16/main.OLD-2026-04-11

Result

  • Root disk: 6 GB free → 26 GB free (+20 GB after this + earlier DuckDB migration)
  • Root usage: 99% → 95%
  • Total downtime: ~5 minutes
  • Data integrity: verified
  • No config drift: postgresql.conf.bak-2026-04-11 preserved for reference

Remaining on root

Still significant non-TerraPulse data on root:

  • /home/bisenbek/projects/nominate (74 GB)
  • /home/bisenbek/lib (84 GB)
  • /home/bisenbek/projects/myfinalwishes.co (15 GB)
  • Other non-terrapulse projects

These are outside the scope of the TerraPulse storage policy.

Storage policy (effective 2026-04-11)

All TerraPulse data should live on /mnt/ursa. Specifically:

  • WSPR raw archive: /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/wspr/raw/ ✅
  • DuckDB staging: /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/duckdb/ ✅ (symlinked from project data/duckdb)
  • PostgreSQL data: /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/postgres/16/main/ ✅
  • Backfill queue: /mnt/ursa/data/terrapulse/backfill/ ✅

The project repo on /home/bisenbek/projects/terrapulse should contain only code, small caches (graph_cache.json, etc), and the workspaces directory (which is small — paper text and small result files).

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