Manage disk space

You can use several utilities and tools to manage disk spaces and the data that the database server controls.

You can use the following utilities to manage storage spaces:

The onspaces utility commands
SQL administration API commands

Your HCL Informix Performance Guide also contains information about managing disk space. In particular, it describes how to eliminate interleaved extents, how to reclaim space in an empty extent, and how to improve disk I/O.

You can generate SQL administration API or onspaces commands for reproducing the storage spaces, chunks, and logs that exist in a file with the dbschema utility.

Allocate disk space
This section explains how to allocate disk space for the database server.
Specify names for storage spaces and chunks
Chunk names follow the same rules as storage-space names.
Monitor storage spaces
You can monitor the status of storage spaces and configure how you are notified when a storage space becomes full.
Manage dbspaces
This section contains information about creating standard and temporary dbspaces with and without the default page size, specifying the first and next extent sizes for the tblspace tblspace in a dbspace when you create the dbspace, and adding a chunk to a dbspace or blobspace.
Manage blobspaces
This section explains how to create a blobspace and determine the blobpage size.
Manage sbspaces
This section describes how to create a standard or temporary sbspace, monitor the metadata and user-data areas, add a chunk to an sbspace, and alter storage characteristics of smart large objects.
Manage the plogspace
You create or move the plogspace with the onspaces utility or equivalent SQL administration API command.
Automatic space management
You can configure the server to add more storage space automatically when more space is required. You use space more effectively and ensure that space is allocated as necessary, while reducing out-of-space errors. You reduce the time required to manually monitor your spaces to determine which storage space might run out of free space. If you configure the server to automatically add space, you can also manually expand a space or extend a chunk.
Drop a chunk
Use the onspaces utility to drop a chunk from a dbspace.
Drop a storage space
Use onspaces to drop a dbspace, temporary dbspace, blobspace, sbspace, temporary sbspace, or extspace.
Creating a space or chunk from the storage pool
If your storage pool contains entries, you can create storage spaces or chunks from free space in the storage pool.
Returning empty space to the storage pool
You can return the space from an empty chunk or storage space to the storage pool.
Manage extspaces
Skip inaccessible fragments
Display databases
You can display the databases that you create with SMI tables.
Monitor disk usage
Multitenancy
You can segregate data, storage space, and processing resources for multiple client organizations by creating multiple tenant databases in a single instance of Informix®.
Storage optimization
Data compression and consolidation processes can minimize the disk space that is used by your data and indexes.
Load data into a table

Parent topic: Disk, memory, and process management

Related concepts:

Table fragmentation and data storage

Storage space creation and management

Data storage

Related information:

Storage space, chunk, and log creation

SQL Administration API Functions

Managing extents

Managing sbspaces