UNYOUG

I just wanted to mention that ASM is a great product for your database.  I, like most people was skeptical as to if it is worth it.. I like cooked file systems.  Cooked, and Direct IO usually gets you there.  I've been forced into ASM with RAC.  Free disk clustering and one vendor to choke can't be passed up.  What I did find is that Oracle does a fantastic job of balancing the work.. If I create a diskgroup with 20 luns, when I look at the I/O profile for each lun it is extremely even.  You would be hard pressed to see this with a cooked file system that has been grown over time.  What I would say is .. Yes ASM has a learning curve, and Yes I missed cooked file systems, but the performance, and the ability to dynamically move luns in and out is kind of cool.