https://www.oraclescripts.com/tags/move-datafile/Recent content in Move Datafile on Oracle ScriptsHugo -- gohugo.ioenOracleScripts.comFri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.oraclescripts.com/post/move-a-datafile-online-with-alter-database-move-datafile/Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.oraclescripts.com/post/move-a-datafile-online-with-alter-database-move-datafile/ <h2 id="move-a-datafile-online-with-alter-database-move-datafile">Move a Datafile Online with ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE</h2> <h2 id="purpose">Purpose</h2> <p>Oracle 12.1 closed a gap that had existed since the earliest releases: moving or renaming a datafile always meant taking something offline first. A DBA had three choices — switch the tablespace offline, switch the individual datafile offline, or shut the whole instance down to a mounted state — and in every case, an operating-system copy command had to run in the middle of the outage before the database (or the tablespace, or the file) could come back online. <strong><a href="https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/sqlrf/ALTER-DATABASE.html">ALTER DATABASE</a></strong>'s <code>MOVE DATAFILE</code> clause replaced all three procedures with one statement that runs while the database stays open in read/write mode, with no data loss and no maintenance window required.</p>