Current PostgreSQL version numbers consist of a major and a minor version number. For example, in the version number 10.1, the 10 is the major version

Upgrading a PostgreSQL Cluster from 10 to 12

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2021-05-30 04:38:59

Current PostgreSQL version numbers consist of a major and a minor version number. For example, in the version number 10.1, the 10 is the major version number and the 1 is the minor version number, meaning this would be the first minor release of the major release 10.

For releases before PostgreSQL version 10.0, version numbers consist of three numbers, for example, 9.5.3. In those cases, the major version consists of the first two digit groups of the version number, e.g., 9.5, and the minor version is the third number, e.g., 3, meaning this would be the third minor release of the major release 9.5. Minor releases never change the internal storage format and are always compatible with earlier and later minor releases of the same major version number. For example, version 10.1 is compatible with version 10.0 and version 10.6.

For major releases of PostgreSQL, the internal data storage format is subject to change, thus complicating upgrades. The traditional method for moving data to a new major version is to dump and reload the database, though this can be slow. A faster method is pg_upgrade.