Recovering from Data Loss Despite Not Having a Backup: A Postgres True Story

Company database holding critical data goes down after a hard disk crash. There is no redundancy, and no usable backups. The only thing that remains is just a list of files with no structure, recovered from the destroyed filesystem. There is intense time pressure to get back online, and no clear path forward.

This is the true story of a remarkable data recovery, and how PostgreSQL's resilience and clean design made it possible. We will walk through every step, including dealing with lost files and some of the shortcuts taken.