MINPARTSIZE= System Option

Specifies the minimum partition size to use when creating SPD Engine data sets.

Valid in:	Configuration file, SAS invocation
Category:	System administration: Performance
Default:	16M
Engine:	SPD Engine only

Syntax

Required Argument

Details

Syntax

MINPARTSIZE=n | nK | nM | nG

Required Argument

n

is the size of the partition in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. The maximum value for the minimum partition size is 2GB–1 or 2047 megabytes.

Restriction This restriction applies only to 32-bit hosts with the following operating systems: z/OS, Linux SLES 9 x86, and the Windows family. If you create a data set with a partition size greater than or equal to 2 gigabytes, you cannot open the data set with any version of SPD Engine prior to SAS 9.2. The following error message is written to the SAS log: ERROR: Unable to open data file because its data representation differs from the SAS session data representation.

Details

Specifying MINPARTSIZE= sets a lower limit for the partition size that can be specified with the PARTSIZE= option. The MINPARTSIZE= specification could affect whether the partitions are created with approximately the same number of observations. A small partition size means more open files during processing. Your operating system might have a limit on the number of open files used.