Do you have tables with a column storing filenames? Long filenames with full path? If this is the case, then you probably realized how an index on this can be large. And when looking at the values sorted, you have seen the inefficiency of it: a big part of the full name is reapeated because it has the same prefix for files in the same (sub)directory. The 12cR2 Advanced Index Compression (COMPRESS ADVANCED LOW) does not help here because it only compresses identical values, like the basic compression of tables. With unique filenames, we cannot expect any benefit.