We have a requirement to store huge xml data as a column in a table. This column will later be accessed via Java code and written to flat files. The xml data could vary from few Kilo Bytes to few Giga Bytes. In this scenario, what is the best suited column type? XMLTYPE/BLOB/CLOB? We have the xml data available in a XMLTYPE variable in the pl/sql code. Tried storing this in a clob column. But there seems to be severe performance issue. The program which was earlier taking 10 minutes to complete is now taking more than 30 minutes. Any pointers? Please let me know.