Hi Robert, Can I confirm I understand correctly your remark "one block change in a datafile will cause the entire datafile to be backed up" ? If I have a (full) 4Gb datafile, say, and change a single block (eg. a single row in a table), then the whole 4Gb datafile will be backed up in a subsequent incremental level 1 backup? This doesn't really seem to tie in to what I've seen in the past - my understanding was only that changed blocks would go into the incremental - regardless of the use of BCTF. Could you point me to the right place in the manual - please! Thank you very much! Charlotte ----- Original Message ---- From: Robert Freeman <robertgfreeman@xxxxxxxxx> To: Charlotte Hammond <charlottejanehammond@xxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, April 3, 2008 2:44:38 PM Subject: Re: RMAN Restore with Incremental The smaller backup set size could reflect a change in the underlying data, a mass delete of rows for example. Without a block change tracking file, one block change in a datafile will cause the entire datafile to be backed up in an incremental. Hense, the BCTF is pretty darned important! :-) RF Robert G. Freeman Author: Oracle Database 11g New Features (Oracle Press) Portable DBA: Oracle (Oracle Press) Oracle Database 10g New Features (Oracle Press) Oracle9i RMAN Backup and Recovery (Oracle Press) Oracle9i New Feature Blog: http://robertgfreeman.blogspot.com (Oracle Press) ____________________________________________________________________________________ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l