Shiva, have a look at this EMC / Oracle Joint Paper for ASM on EMC http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/asm/pdf/asm-on-emc-5_3.pdf <http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/asm/pdf/asm-on-emc-5_3.pdf> Mark, Do you have heavily i/o intensive batch jobs that have a potential to stream (which may be interpreted by ASM as a hot spot when in fact it is maximum throughput with minimized seek overhead)? Is this meaningful? It was my understanding that ASM has no real knowledge/understanding of "hot spots", and relies simply on spreading data thinly to avoid them. Cheers, Duncan. ============================================================================== Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic communications disclaimer: http://www.credit-suisse.com/legal/en/disclaimer_email_ib.html ==============================================================================