11. Using Alternate Locations : Guidelines for Using Locations
 
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Guidelines for Using Locations
After you have set up the underlying area and mapped it to a location by creating a location object, use the new location as summarized below:
When you create a new database, specify the location for the database’s data, checkpoint, and work files.
Extend a database to include the new location for its data and work files.
After extending a database to use an alternate location designated for data files, you can create tables and indexes in that location.
The checkpoint files can use only a single location (that is, they are not affected when you extend a database).
The initial location of checkpoint files is determined when you create a database, but you can move them to a new location if needed.
Store the data, checkpoint, and work files for a database in the same locations or in different locations.
If the default locations are used when you create the database, all these files are stored in the same area.
We strongly recommend that you store data files on a different disk from those used to store checkpoints. Doing so helps to protect your data in the event of disk failure.
The database uses for temporary storage the first work location that it is extended to. If a database is extended to multiple data locations, data of a table is written to all assigned locations in a round robin fashion. If one location runs out of disk space, an error is generated and the operation stops even if the other locations have free space.