At 12:10 AM 4/06/2006, you wrote:

> They have to handle several blob's and the daily growth of
> the file have to be monitored to estimate backup capacities
> and duration.

Don't overlook the fact that the server's knowledge of DB file size
is calculated in terms of the number of pages * page size. It has no
way to know the on-disk size - that is controlled by the operating
system and includes storage of redirection data that the DB engine
knows nothing about. The more fragmented your disk becomes, the more
redirections there will be and so the larger the on-disk file size becomes.

Also remember that, on Windows, the OS does not update its own record
of the file size until the next time the file is closed. In
Firebird/IB terms, that means the next time all users are logged out.

Helen