Hello all.
I'm a tad pedantic when it comes to optimizing my raid array. And since I'm upgrading my puter to a xp 1700+ (from a p3 733) I thought it was time for a rebuild.
I've read the RAID guide here and it's the best one I've seen as of yet Here. It gives good advice as to block sizing however nothing when it comes to cluster sizes in OS's.
I'm going to try 8,16,32, and 64kb block sizes on the weekend as see how fast the OS (w2k) loads and how much disk activity I get. (Only visual observations as I'm mainly intrested in decreasing startup time).
My question is to cluster sizing. Microsoft recommends 4kb clusters for >2gb NTFS partitions (which coincidently is default) and W2k has problems with anything over 4kb in size (read: Defrag won't work, apparently recycle bin doesn't either, nor does compression). XP on the otherhand, can handle upto 64kb clusters. I don't mind wasting space, and MS says small cluster sizes increase fragmentation...
So how do I install XP on my raid array with a different cluster size? Do I have to format the array (via another computer) then install XP on it? And does this also help place the MFT at the front of the array? As I think that's what I had to do with w2k (but didn't)..
Cheers..
Little Erve.
I'm a tad pedantic when it comes to optimizing my raid array. And since I'm upgrading my puter to a xp 1700+ (from a p3 733) I thought it was time for a rebuild.
I've read the RAID guide here and it's the best one I've seen as of yet Here. It gives good advice as to block sizing however nothing when it comes to cluster sizes in OS's.
I'm going to try 8,16,32, and 64kb block sizes on the weekend as see how fast the OS (w2k) loads and how much disk activity I get. (Only visual observations as I'm mainly intrested in decreasing startup time).
My question is to cluster sizing. Microsoft recommends 4kb clusters for >2gb NTFS partitions (which coincidently is default) and W2k has problems with anything over 4kb in size (read: Defrag won't work, apparently recycle bin doesn't either, nor does compression). XP on the otherhand, can handle upto 64kb clusters. I don't mind wasting space, and MS says small cluster sizes increase fragmentation...
So how do I install XP on my raid array with a different cluster size? Do I have to format the array (via another computer) then install XP on it? And does this also help place the MFT at the front of the array? As I think that's what I had to do with w2k (but didn't)..
Cheers..
Little Erve.