You might want to consider "largefile" tablespaces if you're using 10g - these are tablespaces that have one and only one datafile, which can be up to 4,294,967,296 (roughly 4 billion - a.k.a 4GB) BLOCKS, which means a single file can be 8-to-128TB (terabytes) depending on your block size (2k to 32k). The other nice thing about these is that you can control the files with ALTER TABLESPACE commands, e.g. ALTER TABLESPACE BIG1 RESIZE 10TB; ALTER TABLESPACE BIG2 AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 100G MAXSIZE 10TB; Disclaimer: I've never actually used largefile tablespaces myself - just read about them :-) -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Branimir Petrovic Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 4:33 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Choosing data file size for a multi TB database? How would you approach task of sizing data files for a project that will start with a 1TB database but may relatively quickly grow to stabilize at around 10TB mark? Obvious options are: - start with many smallish files (like 2GB each), then add some thousands more as the database grows, or - start with a number of largish data files (in 10-100GB range each), then add more such files to accommodate growth. Neither of the above options look very desirable (to me at least). First option might be bad choice with checkpointing in mind, but the second option is not the winner if data files ever needs to be moved around. Anyway some initial choice must be made, and all I'd like at this moment is not to give perilous initial advice... (admission: once the "ball" starts rollin', this bastard ain't gonna be mine:)) So from practical perspective - what would be the least troublesome choice? Branimir FYI I - OS platform is the darkest secret at this point, as is the hardware specs (no-one can tell, early signs of "well communicated, well managed" project are all there) FYI II - I've never had to deal with DBs much bigger than 100GB, thus the need for "reality check".. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message or attachments hereto. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of this company shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by it. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l