archive_timeout
No restart — takes effect on reloadtuned by pgconfiguratortime (s/min); 0 disables
Forces a WAL switch on a timer so low-traffic systems still archive regularly.
What pgconfigurator would set
32 GB · 8 vCPU · NVMe · OLTP
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What it does
On a quiet database, a WAL segment can take a long time to fill, so it isn't archived — and recent changes aren't yet recoverable. archive_timeout forces a WAL file switch after the given interval so archiving (and thus your PITR recovery point) keeps up even with little write activity.
How to tune it
Set it to bound your worst-case data-loss window for PITR (e.g. 60 s means at most ~a minute unarchived). Don't set it tiny on a busy system — it forces frequent, possibly mostly-empty segment switches, wasting archive space.