Making Oracle-related ETL (and database reorganization) processing more efficient can start with the simple premise of optimizing the performance of each step, and the movement of data between the steps. This document explains the importance of speed in each case, and recommends offline (external) processing to improve speed. File-based staging unburdens the database, ETL and BI tools in which high volume transforms need not, and should not, occur. At the end of the document is a step-by-step example of IRI's methodology for faster extraction of data into this file system, combined with large transforms, advanced reporting, and pre-sorted bulk loads.