I was just reading up on the 11gR2 documentation for Grid Infrastructure Installation and finally we have a closure on the topic of RAW and BLOCK devices for OCR and VOTING disks:

With this release, OUI no longer supports installation of Oracle Clusterware files on block or raw devices. Install Oracle Clusterware files either on Automatic Storage Management diskgroups, or in a supported shared file system.

For new installations, OCR and voting disk files can be placed either on ASM, or on a cluster file system or NFS system. Installing Oracle Clusterware files on raw or block devices is no longer supported, unless an existing system is being upgraded.

REFERENCE: What’s New in Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation and Configuration?

Perfect timing! I was just mulling over what to do with OCR/VOTING on my upcoming SAN-based RAC install — now it’s clear — use 11gR2 and store them on ASM.

Vitaliy Mogilevskiy September 10, 2009

Posted In: RAC

Tags: 11gR2, grid, raw or block devices