There you have the answer. Since a scattered read can't cross an extent boundary (as Mark has already pointed out too), the most you can get with an 8K blocksize is 8 blocks per multiblock read. (8 x 8K = 64K). The occasional < 8 block reads could be due to one of the blocks being in the buffer pool already. At 12:47 PM 7/19/2004, you wrote: Hi Wolfgang I use 64k uniform size. Regards Wolfgang Breitling Centrex Consulting Corporation www.centrexcc.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------