I need to unload a production 380 gig db onto dev, most of the bulk is in the lobs. Can I do this say maybe overnight without the lobs? What kind of locking is done with unload? Some tables probably have a million or more rows.

I cannot restore the db onto dev as there is not enough disk space.

The following answer assumes you use DB2 for Linux, UNIX, Windows (z/OS is different):

You can use export command to extract individual tables. If you use IXF format you need to specify LOBs qualifier (file name or location) or the LOBs will be truncated at 32K (which may be OK in your case).

When you do an export, you create a SQL select statement that determines which rows you want (or leave off WHERE clause to extract all rows). You can specify WITH UR on the end of the select to avoid any locking during the extract. You can also use db2move to pull all the data for all tables. Check the Command Reference manual for export command and db2move utility.

Then load the exported data back into the dev system. If you used db2move, then use db2move again to load the exported data (see manual for correct options).