How to reduce the size of SYSTEM tablespace?

Question

* Solaris
* Oracle 9.2.0.4.0
* Locally managed database (since SYSTEM is locally managed TS)
I have a Oracle 9i database with is around 7 months old. Over the 7 months it had around 400 schema’s at most and SYSTEM tablespace was increased to 850MB. Now it only has around 120 schema’s and size of the SYSTEM tablespace still 850MB and it’s 99% used.
How can I get more free space on system tablespace?
* I have made sure that non-sys(tem) user don’t have objects on SYSTEM tablespace.
* I understand that dropping schema does not give you all the space back, since objects are store as row in System tables etc.
Increasing disk is not an option for me. Any tips to free space on system welcome.
Thanks,
Nazrul Islam

Answer 1

Thanks Joel Pérez for trying to help.
SQL> select segment_name, owner from
dba_segments
where owner not in
('SYS','SYSTEM','OUTLN','MDSYS','ORDSYS','WMSYS')
and
TABLESPACE_NAME='SYSTEM';
SEGMENT_NAME                   OWNER
TOAD_PLAN_SQL                  TOAD
TOAD_PLAN_TABLE                TOAD
PLSQL_PROFILER_RUNS            TOAD
PLSQL_PROFILER_UNITS           TOAD
PLSQL_PROFILER_DATA            TOAD
TPSQL_IDX                      TOAD
TPTBL_IDX                      TOAD
SYS_C006895561                 TOAD
SYS_C006895563                 TOAD
SYS_C006895566                 TOAD
10 rows selected.
SQL> select owner from dba_segments where
tablespace_name='SYSTEM'
group by owner;
OWNER
OUTLN
SYS
SYSTEM
TOAD
WMSYSHere is my query (to show TOAD is taking very little
space):r.- That is true, the space used by TOAD is little
>
SQL> select owner, SUM(bytes)/1048576 AS "TOTAL
(MB)"
from dba_segments
where tablespace_name = 'SYSTEM'
group by owner order by "TOTAL (MB)" desc;
OWNER                 TOTAL (MB)
SYS                     820.4375
SYSTEM                      20.5
WMSYS                     3.6875
TOAD                       .6875
OUTLN                       .375Looks like, I have to grow system. Or since I have a
fixed number of schema now, I think I will have to
recreate a DB to reduce SYSTEM size.
Joel one other info that might explain why
this happening. Part of our build process is to drop
4 schemas and roles and recreate them.
e.g.
drop user nislam cascade;
create user nislam ....And we do many builds a day. Maybe Oracle uses more
space in doing that since new userid, better might be
drop objects from the schema. WHAT do you
say?
r.- In theorical lines. Both must give the same results but... I would recommend you to carry out some intensive test about it in a test enviroment testing both methods to monitor the behavior of the growth of the tablespace system. As you said, perhaps dropping the user objects will get better results.
>
Regards,
Nazrul IslamJoel Pérez
http://otn.oracle.com/experts