Re: ASM LUN sizes and number of disks

Mark mentioned: "when folks don't want to have different disk sizes in a disk group, so they cut up the big new disk into pieces to add to the disk group. Then of course ASM will "balance" by size and end up putting twice as much data on the physical drive that is presented as two pieces"

So there are valid options, depending on your requirements:

If you want to spread data across a heterogeneous bunch of discs, *and read/write performance is not your primary concern* then you should probably carve up all your discs into LUNs of the same size. ASM will then balance data across all of the LUNS - so when your 2Tb disc is 70% full, so will be your 100Gb disc.

If you want optimal read/write performance *and you don't mind wasting some space on the larger discs*, then follow Marks suggestion of one LUN per physical spindle. Your drives will fill up to the size of the smallest disc (if I understand correctly).

If you want the best combination - just use the same size (and performance) discs (and have 1 LUN per physical disc). Now you make a tradeoff to make between the size, iops, latency and cost of the discs.

Of course, in real life you may wish break down the data in your application into different categories, for some of which (eg latest transactions) r/w performance is critical, and for others (eg last year's warehouse stock movements) optimal space usage is more important.

Regards Nigel

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l