Fast Recovery Area

In Oracle 11gR2, the flash recovery area was renamed as fast recovery area. FRA is the unified location for the storage of backup and recovery related files.These files are managed by RMAN and flashback operations to reclaim the space for new files. FRA can contain the following files.

• Archived redo logs
• Flashback logs
• RMAN backups
• Online redo log
• Controlfile

 The following parameters can be configured dynamically in order to setup FRA. 

• DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE
• DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
• DB_FLASHBACK_RETENTION_TARGET  --> default value is 1440 min

Setup FRA
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE=2G;

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST='/u05/fra';

View FRA space usage
SQL> SELECT  * FROM V$RECOVERY_FILE_DEST;
SQL> SELECT * FROM V$FLASH_RECOVERY_AREA_USAGE;