Extent size configurations for large storage areas

Posted by davidkerkhofs3 on 28-May-2009 03:42

Hello,

I've got a question on the best approach in sizing the extents for a large database.

Is it useful to have a storage area with many "small" (i.e. < 2Gb) extents or does a system benefit from using less but bigger extents?


OE10.1B 64Bit on HP-UX 11i v1

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Posted by ChUIMonster on 28-May-2009 06:16

A long time ago some operatings systems (HPUX and DOS come to mind) benefitted from having lots of small extents.

But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

I have not found any performance advantage/disadvantage to large extents (or small extents) for a very long time.

These days I think that there is more advantage to the DBA in having fewer, larger, extents.  It's just a bit simpler to manage fewer files -- it makes it so that there is less to look at in directory listings, in .st files and so on and so forth.  Which makes the daily grind a little less wearing.

(I favor many storage areas.  This sometimes counter-balances the "fewer extents" direction above resulting in "many" extents but for a different reason.)

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