If you look up "Logical I/O" in the Master Glossary of the Oracle docs, it's defined as:

"A block read which may or may not be satisfied from the buffer cache."

So a logical I/O is always a *block* read. It does not take into acount whether you're doing a multiblock read or not. One reason this is so is because the CBO does not know whether the block is already in the buffer cache or not. If it's already in the cache, then multiblock read is not an issue anymore.

The init parameter db_file_multiblock_read_count is what makes the CBO favor fast full index scan over a non-fast scan like full index scan or index range scan. The LIO itself does not take into consideration the aspect of multiblock read.

Regards,
Dave



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

i thought an index_fs only read 1 block per i/o? same with an index range
scan because they are using random access?
----- Original Message -----
To: "Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 5:29 PM




An index fast full scan and an index full scan both need to access all
the blocks of an index. The only difference between them is that the
index_ffs accesses the blocks in the order of the blocks (and uses
multiblock read), whereas the index_fs accesses the blocks in the order
of the b tree index. In terms of # logical I/Os, they are exactly the


same.


OTOH, an index range scan by definition is a _range_ scan, and need to
access only a subset of the blocks of an index.  Because of this, it'll
have a lower # logical I/Os than an index_ffs.

Regards,
Dave


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:




ive found that index_ffs typically incur higher logical I/Os that index


range scans. so its not just access speeds.




From: David Hau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 2004/01/27 Tue AM 11:54:26 EST
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: When does Oracle use 'Index Fast Scan'

This is where the access time of your disks (or SAN) makes a difference.
If your disks have really fast access time, then a random-access
pattern would not cause much performance degradation and so a range scan
would not be slow at all, even though it's traversing the b-tree index
structure.  If you're only striping together disks with relatively slow
access time (e.g. using a striped IDE disk array), then you have high
throughput but not that fast an access time.  In this case, fast full
index scan would be much faster than an index range scan because the
fast full scan reads the blocks sequentially and a sequential disk I/O
requires only positioning the head once (assuming the disk is not
fragmented).  The rest of the time depends on the throughput.  If you
stripe together a large enough number of IDE disks, then your throughput
is great but your access time is still the access time of a single IDE
drive which is not that fast.

This is assuming you need to do a physical I/O to obtain the blocks.  Of
course, if the blocks already reside in the buffer cache, then it's a
different story.

Regards,
Dave


[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:






btw, in many cases range scan is faster than a fast full scan. Range


scan recursively hits the nodes that are needed and skips the ones that are
not. So it reads less blocks.


So if you are looking for a 'range' or a specific value, range scan


beats fast full scan most of the time. Less Logical and Physical I/Os.


test it and hint your queries







From: David Hau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 2004/01/26 Mon PM 10:34:25 EST
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: When does Oracle use 'Index Fast Scan'

Correction:  the Index Range Scan can be parallelized when it involves
multiple partitions.

- Dave


David Hau wrote:







I assume you're talking about the Fast Full Index Scan. This is used
when the index contains all the columns necessary to answer the


query.


It's faster than a Full Table Scan because indexes are smaller than
entire rows, so a Fast Full Index Scan will scan fewer blocks than a
Full Table Scan.

It's faster than an Index Range Scan firstly because Fast Full Index
Scan scans the blocks in sequential order, whereas the Index Range
Scan traverses the B-tree index structure in scanning the blocks,
resulting in a random access I/O pattern which is slower. This is
also why the Oracle documentation says that with a Fast Full Index
Scan, the result is not sorted by the index key (because the result


is


not obtained by traversing the index structure.) Secondly, the


better


performance is also because the Fast Full Index Scan uses multiblock
reads and is capable of parallel operation, whereas the Index Range
Scan is capable of neither.

Regards,
Dave.



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:






I have found that the vast majority of time that Oracle chooses this
method, my statistics are stale and the query is sub-optimal. One
time, Oracle changed from a 'range scan' to this type of scan with a
FIRST_ROWS hint and this reduced performance.

This is just a full scan of the index, one block at a time right?
When would this ever be superior to a Fast Full Scan or a Range


Scan?







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