Originally posted by: Xeon
Originally posted by: CannibalisticH0b0
Yeah, I think u have the 2003 version, since mine hung up before, too.
I didn't find anything about "strip size", but I assume it's under a different name. Here are the things that I think MIGHT be the strip size:
Cluster size 4k.
Bytes per sector 512
Sectors per cluster 8.
Is it one of those? If it's not, I guess I should go back to the 2003 version (using the 2004 demo now) and see if I can find it there, right?
If it's really 4k or something, should I just zero-fill (low-format) my HDD's, make the RAID strip size 64k, and follow the instructions that Xeon showed me (via the link)? I heard someplace that 64k is ideal for WinXP, is that true? Once again, I have 2 Maxtor 80Gb 7200RPM 8Mb cache ATA133 HDD's.
Thank you
For the stripe size on a RAID0 it really depends on the size of the files that you normally work with that will give you the optimal one to use. I?d look over the files you work with most such as gaming files, graphics, video etc. (if that's what you do most) and find the average sizes then pick the a stripe closest to this average. That should give you the best performance with what you?re working with. The stripe size can be from 1kb to 1024kb so there isn?t a hard fast rule you can just use to say which is best.
I think generally 128 is what people use most but if your working with larger file sizes than a larger stripe size should be used, if it?s smaller file sizes then a smaller one should be used.
The reason for this is that if the file that is being written is smaller than the stripe size, the RAID array will not factor. So, if an 8kb file is written to a 128kb array, the data will simply be passed to one of the drives by the controller as a whole file. If the file being written is huge and the stripe size is very small, the file will be broken into many, many chunks before being written to the drives. For instance, if you set your stripe to 4kb and write a 16,000kb file, the file gets broken into 4,000 chunks of 4kb. Writing 4,000 chunks to the drives, 2 at a time, will actually cause a decrease in performance.
So, you will need to analyze what you plan to do with your RAID, then analyze what files you are working with most and determine which stripe size is best for your needs. There is no one size fits all.
Hope this helped.