A datafile can be moved by either of the following procedures...

do an OS copy of the datafile to new location
shutdown the database & startup mount but not open
alter database rename file "oldname' 'newname'
alter database open
backup the controlfile
OS delete the original file


OS copy the file to new location
alter tablespace "name" offline
alter tablespace rename datafile 'oldname' 'newname'
alter tablespace 'name' online
backup the controlfile
OS delete the original file

both proc's achieve the same result - which is preferable? With the alter tablespace proc the process happens without an outage.

Like to hear some opinions on this....