"This job runs in under 2 hours on 8.1.7.4, and 6.5 hours on 9.2.0.4=20 (both on VMS 7.3-1) The data is identical (exact copy of the data files), but the cpu is different. It's possible that the cpu difference accounts for all 4 hours difference." If the CPU is different, how specifically is it different? Is the disk config the same, is the overall load on the disk the same. Not sure if "Bonnie" will work on VMS but this is a good tool for checking disk speeds quickly. Google "Bonnie Disk". -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l