FILESYSTEMIO_OPTIONS = SETALL v ASYNCH Oracle11g on RHEL5 direct path read temp waits
The new system is a LeftHand SAN with masses of spindles and everyting is spread over everything (Network RAID 10 over RAID 5).
I thought the slowness might be due to directio not being used for sorts, so I changed FILESYSTEMIO_OPTIONS=SETALL from AYSNCH.