One datafile?

A collegue of mine has suggested that we could test running our production database (V7.2 about to go to V7.3 on NT3.5 about to go to 4) by just using one big data file (system and user data all in together). We have a RAID 5 set up reading one logical drive - so contention and I/O concurrency is irrellevant.

Apparently on a standalone set up this has yielded performace benefits. The logic being that one big datafile means less work for I/O than 2. I personally doubt that would be much of a difference.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this. There is no requirement to take tablespaces offline individually for backups or whatever - we run in archivelog mode with a cold backup every night.

The growth of the database is slow (and is in terms of data not objects)

My first reaction was to this was that it would be a bad thing to do - but why not? Are there *really* any dangers associated with this

On the other hand is there much to gain from this performance wise? I suspect not ??

Tim Palmer Received on Fri Jul 31 1998 - 05:08:25 CDT