Oracle Database searches for your parameter file in a particular order depending on your platform. For Oracle RAC databases, you can easily determine the ___location of the parameter file by using the srvctl config database command.
On Linux and UNIX platforms, the search order is as follows:
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfilesid.ora
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfile.ora
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initsid.ora
On Windows platforms, the search order is as follows:
%ORACLE_HOME%\database\spfilesid.ora
%ORACLE_HOME%\database\spfile.ora
%ORACLE_HOME%\database\initsid.ora
Note:
Oracle recommends that you do not use the default SPFILE names because all instances must use the same file and they all have different SIDs. Instead, store the SPFILE on Oracle ASM. If you store the SPFILE on a cluster file system, then use the following naming convention for the SPFILE: $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfiledb_unique_name.ora. Create a PFILE named $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initsid.ora that contains the name SPFILE=ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfiledb_unique_name.ora.