Creating Your First Hypertable

Tiger Data 101 → TimescaleDB | Section: Hypertables | ⏱ Time: ~2 min

Creating a hypertable from Scratch

The recommended approach is to use the modern CREATE TABLE syntax with the tsdb.hypertable option:

CREATE TABLE sensor_readings (
  time       TIMESTAMPTZ NOT NULL,
  device_id  TEXT NOT NULL,
  temperature FLOAT,
  humidity   FLOAT
) WITH (tsdb.hypertable, tsdb.partition_column = 'time');

Or, if you already have a regular table, convert it:

SELECT create_hypertable('sensor_readings', by_range('time'));

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Configuring chunk intervals

TimescaleDB automatically chooses chunk intervals (typically 7 days for new data), but you can customize:

ALTER TABLE sensor_readings SET (
  timescaledb.chunk_time_interval = INTERVAL '1 day'
);

Guidelines:

• Smaller intervals (1 hour – 1 day): For high-cardinality or very high write volume
• Medium intervals (1 week): Good default for most use cases
• Larger intervals (1 month+): For lower cardinality or sparse data

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Partitioning, Indexing & Optimization — Discover advanced techniques for optimizing your hypertable layout.