Bulk loading

There are two slightly different types of bulk data loads you might want to do. The first type, and main focus of this section, is when you're initially populating an empty database. Sometimes you also need to do later bulk loads into tables that are already populated. In that case, some of the techniques here, such as dropping indexes and constraints, will no longer be applicable. And you may not be able to get quite as aggressive in tuning the server for better loading speed, when doing incremental loading. In particular, options that decrease integrity for the whole server, such as disabling fsync, only make sense when starting with a blank system.