Skip Headers
Oracle® Database Reference
10g Release 2 (10.2)

Part Number B14237-02
Go to Documentation Home
Home
Go to Book List
Book List
Go to Table of Contents
Contents
Go to Index
Index
Go to Master Index
Master Index
Go to Feedback page
Contact Us

Go to previous page
Previous
Go to next page
Next
View PDF

Physical Database Limits

Item Type of Limit Limit Value
Database Block Size Minimum 2048 bytes; must be a multiple of operating system physical block size
Maximum Operating system dependent; never more than 32 KB
Database Blocks Minimum in initial extent of a segment. 2 blocks
Maximum per datafile Platform dependent; typically 222 - 1 blocks
Controlfiles Number of control files 1 minimum; 2 or more (on separate devices) strongly recommended
Size of a control file Dependent on operating system and database creation options; maximum of 20,000 x (database block size)
Database files Maximum per tablespace Operating system dependent; usually 1022
Maximum per database 65533

May be less on some operating systems

Limited also by size of database blocks and by the DB_FILES initialization parameter for a particular instance

Database extents Maximum per dictionary managed tablespace 4 GB * physical block size (with K/M modifier); 4 GB (without K/M modifier)
Maximum per locally managed (uniform) tablespace 2 GB * physical block size (with K/M modifier); 2 GB (without K/M modifier)
Database file size Maximum Operating system dependent. Limited by maximum operating system file size; typically 222 or 4 MB blocks
MAXEXTENTS Default value Derived from tablespace default storage or DB_BLOCK_SIZE initialization parameter
Maximum Unlimited
Redo Log Files Maximum number of logfiles Limited by value of MAXLOGFILES parameter in the CREATE DATABASE statement

Control file can be resized to allow more entries; ultimately an operating system limit

Maximum number of logfiles per group Unlimited
Redo Log File Size Minimum size 50 KB
Maximum size Operating system limit; typically 2 GB
Tablespaces Maximum number per database 64 K

Number of tablespaces cannot exceed the number of database files because each tablespace must include at least one file

Bigfile Tablespaces Number of blocks A bigfile tablespace contains only one datafile or tempfile, which can contain up to approximately 4 billion ( 232 ) blocks. The maximum size of the single datafile or tempfile is 128 terabytes (TB) for a tablespace with 32K blocks and 32TB for a tablespace with 8K blocks.
Smallfile (traditional) Tablespaces Number of blocks A smallfile tablespace is a traditional Oracle tablespace, which can contain 1022 datafiles or tempfiles, each of which can contain up to approximately 4 million (222) blocks.
External Tables file Maximum size Dependent on the operating system.

An external table can be composed of multiple files.