Re: Does an ALTER SYSTEM CHKPOINT write all dirty buffers to datafiles ?

spendius_at_muchomail.com (Spendius) wrote in message news:<aba30b75.0307140556.6a8baf93_at_posting.google.com>...
> Does this command really ascertain that *all* modified buffers
> will be written out to disk ??
>
> I'd just like to make sure (the doc. is not very clear about
> it, and I found different answers to this question -according to
> some it does write all dirty buffers, according to other people
> it only updates the SCN in the datafiles' headers...-).
>
> Thanks.
> Spendius

If all it did was update the datafiles' headers, you'd never see "Checkpoint not complete" errors. Google for that.

The idea of checkpointing is to be sure redo logs are written. Redo logs are the Achilles' Heel of Oracle. While nothing besides performance is likely to be affected if you are getting "Checkpoint not complete" errors, if your system goes down without finishing the checkpoint, you've quite possibly set up to lose stuff when instance recovery takes place on the next startup.

jg

--
@home.com is bogus.
And that is why I think shutdown abort is like Achilles waving his leg
around going "nyah nyah, bet you can't hit me Paris!"