The catalog store contains the metadata for the IQ database.
The SYSTEM dbspace – The IQ catalog dbspace named SYSTEM contains metadata for your IQ database, stored in the same format as tables in a SQL Anywhere relational database system. SQL Anywhere can exist with or without IQ. You may have SQL Anywhere-style tables in your catalog store along with your IQ tables, or you may have a separate SQL Anywhere database. Each catalog dbspace contains exactly one file.
Other catalog dbspaces – You can create SQL Anywhere tables in a separate dbspace from the SYSTEM dbspace.
You can preallocate space to your catalog store. See SQL Anywhere Server - Database Administration > Starting and connecting to your database > Working with database files > Using additional dbspaces > Preallocating space for database files.