> I have the following situation:
> - Windows 2003 Server and NTFS
> - Firebird 1.5.2 SuperServer Installation
> - database size: > 3 GB
> - page size: 4096 (default)
> - buffers: 32786
>
> I got in trouble with the speed. Checking the OAT/OIT values give
> normal results. Then I did a backup/restore and got an acceptable
> speed again. Interesting thing was, that the effective database file
> size did not change so much. So what was the problem?
> I checked the hard disk fragmentaion and found out that my old
> database file (before backup/restore cycle) which I renamed, was
> fragmented terrible, but the new one was quite not fragmented (as
> expected).
>
> Now what I ask for is any good idea to avoid this fragmentation. I
> thougth about two possibilities:
> 1. Running the database file on its own harddisk/partition: problem
> on existing systems.
> 2. Preallocation of diskspace at database creation time to avoid
> slowly fragmented growing of the database file. But I foud no
> function/parameter to do this.

-create table
-fill it with lots of data (using loop in SP)
-drop the table

Ivan
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