Database Software

Hi guys,

I have an issue with expdp, oracle data pump utility.

Before doing the export I estimated the size of backup to be around 56GB. Then I started my backup by using the traditional exp utility. It completed successfully and it took only 48GB, less than what I expected.

Recently, I found expdp to be rich in features, so I thought of giving it a try. But from the day I used it, I'm going through a series of never ending problems. Let me explain, what happened.

I'm doing a full database export. For dumpfile parameter, I'm specifying a wildcard character *%U* which I found in the expdp documentation along with the Filesize parameter. I was specifying a list of dump directories which point to different locations on my solaris OS, because I don't have a single file system which can accommodate all my dump files. For the file size parameter I specified 3GB.

My assumption was, if it finds the file system to be full, it will go for another dump directory in the list I have specified for dump file parameter. But it did not happen like that, instead it started writing contents to each file system in a cyclic manner, when it found the file system to be full, instead of going for another file system or dump directory I have specified, it was trying to write to the same directory and at last the data pump export operation hanged. I had to manually kill the process because the file system got full and it was trying to write to that same file system.

After I stopped the export operation, I checked how much space it had taken, it was a whooping 72GB. I couldn't believe my eyes. People say that expdp stored data in compressed format, but in my case it just blew up everything. It filled up a file system completely and I got nice scoldings from my manager as well as our client.

I'm fed up with this new data pump altogether. I have decided to go back to my sweet friend exp again. My only question is this, when exp finds the list of file names to be exhausted, it will prompt for file names on its own. Can I handle this in a shell script, like whether I can specify new file names for exp through a shell script, whenever it prompts.

exp is my last resort and I have a strong hope that exp will solve my problems. I sincerely request all oracle gurus to help me on this task. If there is a way to handle space shortage issues by expdp itself, please suggest me.

Thank you all in advance.