We have a big oracle 9.2.0.4 database, in the 2 TB size range. The database stores aerial imagery and 99% of the storage is in 15-20 tables. Our tables are huge. Query performance from the database is great, but importing the export of this database takes a good deal of time, as one might expect. I made the decision to do import/export because we don't have archive logging and I can't bring the database down long enough to copy the datafiles, and import/export is easier to test. However, the import process spends ½ of its time (I'm estimating) doing table scans. I witness this by going into OEM and viewing the Long Operations tab of the session. I used the following for the export: exp \'sys/xxx @raster as sysdba\' buffer=20000000 file=/rasterbu1/rasterbu.dmp full=y COMPRESS=y consistent=n log=/rasterbu1/rasterbu.log and this for the import: imp \'sys/xxx as sysdba\' file=/rasterbu1/rasterbu.dmp log=imp.log full=y I don't have any reason to believe the database import will not work, but I would like to speed it up if possible. Thanks for your help, Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l