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.