You can defer the creation of segments when creating a partitioned table until the first row is inserted into a partition. Subsequently, when the first row is inserted, segments are created for the base table partition, LOB columns, all global indexes, and local index partitions. Deferred segment creation can be controlled by the following:
Setting the DEFERRED_SEGMENT_CREATION initialization parameter to TRUE or FALSE in the initialization parameter file.
Setting the initialization parameter DEFERRED_SEGMENT_CREATION to TRUE or FALSE with the ALTER SESSION or ALTER SYSTEM SQL statements.
Specifying the keywords SEGMENT CREATION IMMEDIATE or SEGMENT CREATION DEFERRED with the partition clause when issuing the CREATE TABLE SQL statement.
You can force the creation of segments for an existing created partition with the ALTER TABLE MODIFY PARTITION ALLOCATE EXTENT SQL statement. This statement allocates one extent more than the initial number of extents specified during the CREATE TABLE.
Serializable transactions do not work with deferred segment creation. Inserting data into an empty table with no segment created, or into a partition of an interval partitioned table that does not have a segment yet, can cause an error.
Oracle Database Reference for more information about the DEFERRED_SEGMENT_CREATION initialization parameter
Oracle Database SQL Language Reference for more information about the ALTER SESSION and ALTER SYSTEM SQL statements
Oracle Database SQL Language Reference for more information about the keywords SEGMENT CREATION IMMEDIATE and SEGMENT CREATION DEFERRED of the CREATE TABLE SQL statement