Amihay, These "optional" tablespaces - can you make them read-only? If all tablespaces are "optional", you might consider creating your database without them, then take a cold backup. Then your recovery model becomes: 1. Recover cold backup. 2. Run create tablespace scripts. 3. Recreate user data. If your database contains a combination of tablespaces, you may want to consider separate Oracle instances, so you can create an appropriate recovery model for each type of tablespace. Dennis Williams