Hi Tanel I used count(*) and forced a FTS because otherwse it is the SQLPLUS that is the bottleneck (fetching the rows). Brute force test looking for the maximum bandwidth It is db file scattered read, in all cases is reading from ASM. In P7 however I am not 100% sure if it was direct path read or db file scattered read, I will try again. Cheers -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l