A transportable tablespace export is specified using the TRANSPORT_TABLESPACES parameter. In transportable tablespace mode, only the metadata for the tables (and their dependent objects) within a specified set of tablespaces is exported. The tablespace data files are copied in a separate operation. Then, a transportable tablespace import is performed to import the dump file containing the metadata and to specify the data files to use.
Transportable tablespace mode requires that the specified tables be completely self-contained. That is, all storage segments of all tables (and their indexes) defined within the tablespace set must also be contained within the set. If there are self-containment violations, then Export identifies all of the problems without actually performing the export.
Transportable tablespace exports cannot be restarted once stopped. Also, they cannot have a degree of parallelism greater than 1.
Encrypted columns are not supported in transportable tablespace mode.
You cannot export transportable tablespaces and then import them into a database at a lower release level. The target database must be at the same or later release level as the source database.
"How Does Data Pump Handle Timestamp Data?" for information about special considerations concerning timestamp data when using transportable tablespace mode