Configuring the block-based area

Buffer pools are defined as having a large number of pages by default, so when DB2 issues a prefetch, the pages read from the disk may not be stored contiguously in the buffer pool.

The block-based area enhances prefetching performance by allowing a contiguous area of the buffer pool for this eventuality, named the block area, or block-based area. Each set of contiguous pages is called a block; the number of pages in a block is referred to as the blocksize.