As I said, there wasn't detailed analysis of the situation, but the SysAdmin thought that might be the case. It was on an HPUX server connected to an older HP XP512 SAN, ...right, an hitachi 9000 series (OEMed). This things are famous for throttling back I/Os on a per-LUN basis.... but that has nothing to do with the number of writers. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l