diff --git a/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c b/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
index 4181c1a1873..14757befdff 100644
--- a/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
+++ b/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
  *
  *
  * IDENTIFICATION
- *	  $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c,v 1.242.2.6 2010/07/01 14:11:42 rhaas Exp $
+ *	  $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c,v 1.242.2.7 2010/07/29 19:23:44 tgl Exp $
  *
  *-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
@@ -5960,11 +5960,11 @@ static void
 copy_relation_data(Relation rel, SMgrRelation dst)
 {
 	SMgrRelation src;
+	char	   *buf;
+	Page		page;
 	bool		use_wal;
 	BlockNumber nblocks;
 	BlockNumber blkno;
-	char		buf[BLCKSZ];
-	Page		page = (Page) buf;
 
 	/*
 	 * Since we copy the file directly without looking at the shared buffers,
@@ -5974,6 +5974,15 @@ copy_relation_data(Relation rel, SMgrRelation dst)
 	 */
 	FlushRelationBuffers(rel);
 
+	/*
+	 * palloc the buffer so that it's MAXALIGN'd.  If it were just a local
+	 * char[] array, the compiler might align it on any byte boundary, which
+	 * can seriously hurt transfer speed to and from the kernel; not to
+	 * mention possibly making log_newpage's accesses to the page header fail.
+	 */
+	buf = (char *) palloc(BLCKSZ);
+	page = (Page) buf;
+
 	/*
 	 * We need to log the copied data in WAL iff WAL archiving is enabled AND
 	 * it's not a temp rel.
@@ -6003,6 +6012,8 @@ copy_relation_data(Relation rel, SMgrRelation dst)
 		smgrextend(dst, blkno, buf, true);
 	}
 
+	pfree(buf);
+
 	/*
 	 * If the rel isn't temp, we must fsync it down to disk before it's safe
 	 * to commit the transaction.  (For a temp rel we don't care since the rel