ORA-15041: Diskgroup DATA Space Exhausted

ORA-15041: Diskgroup “DATA” Space Exhausted — How to Diagnose & Fix the Issue

When working in Oracle RAC/ASM environments, one of the common storage-related issues is ORA-15041: diskgroup space exhausted.
This error typically appears when adding datafiles/tempfiles or when Oracle internally tries to allocate space.

In this example, the issue occurs while adding a TEMPFILE.

ERROR

SQL> ALTER TABLESPACE TEMP ADD TEMPFILE size 4096M;

ALTER TABLESPACE TEMP ADD TEMPFILE size 4096M
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01119: error in creating database file ‘+DATA’
ORA-17502: ksfdcre:4 Failed to create file +DATA
ORA-15041: diskgroup “DATA” space exhausted

This clearly indicates that the +DATA ASM diskgroup is full.

Step 1 — Initial Cleanup (Optional Scenario)

In some environments, the audit trail may also fail due to SYSTEM tablespace being full.

Example:

ORA-02002: error while writing to audit trail
ORA-01653: unable to extend table SYS.AUD$ by 8192 in tablespace SYSTEM

A quick temporary workaround:

[oracle@dba ~]$ sqlplus sys/***@QA as sysdba

SQL> truncate table AUD$;
Table truncated.

SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

This may free some space in SYSTEM, but it does NOT solve the ASM diskgroup space issue. Proceed to proper diagnostics.

Step 2 — Diagnose ASM Diskgroup Space

First, check the overall ASM diskgroup capacity:

SQL> select group_number, name, total_mb, free_mb from v$ASM_DISKGROUP;

GROUP_NUMBER NAME TOTAL_MB FREE_MB
———— ———– ———- ———-
1 DATA 409600 800
2 RECO 256000 204800

The DATA diskgroup has only 800 MB free, which is insufficient for a 4 GB tempfile.

Step 3 — Check TEMP Usage

SQL> select TABLESPACE_NAME, BYTES_USED/1024/1024, BYTES_FREE/1024/1024 from V$TEMP_SPACE_HEADER;

TABLESPACE_NAME BYTES_USED_MB BYTES_FREE_MB
————— ————– ————–
TEMP 33 0

Free space in TEMP is zero—hence the need to add a tempfile.

Step 4 — Check Individual Disks in ASM

SQL> select name, total_mb, free_mb, state from v$asm_disk;

NAME TOTAL_MB FREE_MB STATE
———– ——— ——– ——–
RECODISK1 65536 49028 NORMAL
RECODISK2 65536 49028 NORMAL
RECODISK3 65536 49044 NORMAL
DATA_0003 102400 152 NORMAL
DATA_0000 102400 140 NORMAL
DATA_0001 102400 172 NORMAL
DATA_0002 102400 136 NORMAL
RECODISK4 102400 49020 NORMAL

All DATA disks show very low free space (around 130–170 MB each), confirming the diskgroup is fully consumed.

Step 5 — Validate DATA Diskgroup Status

SQL> select name, total_mb, free_mb, required_mirror_free_mb, usable_file_mb ,type
from v$asm_diskgroup
where name=’DATA’;

NAME TOTAL_MB FREE_MB REQUIRED_MIRROR_FREE_MB USABLE_FILE_MB TYPE
—- ——– ——– ———————— ————— —-
DATA 409600 600 0 800 EXTERN

Since redundancy is EXTERNAL, the usable free space equals the free space. Still not enough to allocate a new tempfile.

Step 6 — View Disk Paths

SQL> select path, free_mb,total_mb,state
from v$asm_disk
where group_number in
(select group_number from v$asm_diskgroup where name=’DATA’);

PATH FREE_MB TOTAL_MB STATE
————— ——– ——— ——–
/dev/DATADISK4 152 102400 NORMAL
/dev/DATADISK3 140 102400 NORMAL
/dev/DATADISK2 172 102400 NORMAL
/dev/DATADISK1 136 102400 NORMAL

No abnormal disks—only low space.

Step 7 — Re-check ASM Operations

SQL> select group_number, operation, state, error_code from v$asm_operation;

no rows selected

No ongoing rebalance or operations blocking disk usage.

Step 8 — Confirm TEMPFILE Metadata

SQL> select * from dba_temp_files where tablespace_name like ‘TEMP’;

FILE_NAME FILE_ID TABLESPACE_NAME BYTES BLOCKS STATUS
——————————————— ——– ————— ———- —— ——-
+DATA/CDB/TEMPFILE/temp.264.1029707049 1 TEMP 34603008 4224 ONLINE

TEMPFILE exists but the diskgroup has no space to add another.

Final Conclusion — Why the Error Occurred

Your +DATA diskgroup is completely full.
Oracle cannot allocate additional space required to create a new TEMPFILE or extend datafiles.

Final Solution Options

To permanently fix the issue, choose one:

Option 1: Add more disks to +DATA ASM diskgroup

Best long-term solution.

 Option 2: Drop unused datafiles/tempfiles

If possible, clean old files or move some datafiles to RECO diskgroup (if appropriate).

 Option 3: Resize / shrink objects

Move large segments, purge logs, or migrate temporary tablespace to RECO (if allowed).

Option 4: Truncating AUD$

This only fixes SYSTEM tablespace issues — not ASM diskgroup free space.

Summary

ORA-15041: diskgroup “DATA” space exhausted
because your DATA ASM diskgroup had only ~600 MB free, while the TEMPFILE required 3 GB.

Diagnostics confirmed:

DATA disks have minimal free space

No ASM operations blocking space

TEMP tablespace fully consumed

ASM diskgroup type is EXTERNAL

Only solution is to free space or add more storage