postgresql backup and recovery
It sounds like you'd be best suited by using a physical base backup + WAL archiving, with regularly updated snapshots of the base backup. I strongly recommend taking regular dumps anyway.

Using newer PostgreSQL versions (9.2 and up, IIRC) you can take fresh base backups from a replica server so you don't have to disrupt the master.

File-system or logical volume level snapshot backups work fine with PostgreSQL so long as your snapshots are atomic. Restoring one is like starting PostgreSQL back up after unexpected power loss or OS reboot, not a big deal.

See also:


The manual
A blog entry I wrote on this topic
Postgres Backup queries on AWS after reading Postgres docs
PostgreSQL: Can I do pg_start_backup() on a live, running db under load?
PostgreSQL &quot;freeze&quot;/&quot;unfreeze&quot; command equivalents
How to do incremental backup every hour in Postgres?
Running pg_dump on a hot standby server?
PostgreSQL crash recovery