Compress data in Promscale

Telemetry data is stored in Promscale using TimescaleDB hypertables. A maintenance job periodically compresses this data. In Timescale DB version 2.0 and later, this maintenance job is automatically scheduled using the job scheduling function. In earlier versions of TimescaleDB, you can use cron or a similar scheduling tool to schedule the maintenance task. See the installation instructions for your platform for more details.

When compression is enabled on Promscale data, the hypertable chunk currently being written to is not compressed. This ensures good write performance. Additionally, previously used chunks are kept uncompressed for at least an hour after they have been closed and a new chunk has been created. This helps with handling late-arriving data. By default, the chunk interval is configured so that a new chunk is created every eight hours. You can configure the chunk size with the set_default_chunk_interval SQL function, like this:

SELECT set_default_chunk_interval(INTERVAL '1h');

The new chunk interval is only applied to new chunks created after the setting is changed. It does not affect chunks that were created before the setting was changed. You can find the current default chunk interval setting with this query:

SELECT get_default_chunk_interval();