Yes, maybe I can bring back some clarity : the poster´s Q was :

" How to estimate the size of export without running export in Oracle 9i environment?"

The answer must be :

==> "** WITHOUT RUNNING **, you are out of luck, this can´t be done, BUT you can do it running export with just a (relatively) small fraction of data, consuming very few resources and time, in a a manner similar to expdp but not identical, using the procedure I wrote in my original post - is this useful ?"

The other answers will be :

"Is there any process to make export exp & import imp faster??"

=> Yes, use the DIRECT, BUFFER and RECORDLENGTH option in export, do NOT export indexes and constraints (make a script only and later run the script with parallel/nologging/enable novalidate), do some simultaneous exports (each one exporting a distinct fraction of data), things like that... Read the Utilities manual to find refs and syntax.

"... and how do i calculated how much time import (original imp utility) takes without actually doing import?( imp)"

==> Again, this can´t be done, BUT you can import a fraction and make a extrapolation, that´s it.... be warned, this is an ESTIMATE, you can be wrong for a margin...

Regards,

Chiappa

Thanks!