Raid 0 Stripe Best Size

[BeenThereB4]

Has anyone determined the best stripe size for Raid 0 using the SI3112 for just average business computer use? What about the cluster size? Any tips for that from experience? I did search, but did not find this. I know that it's not as safe, but these drives are backed up every day and have nothing critical on them besides.

[ginze]

Has anyone determined the best stripe size for Raid 0 using the SI3112 for just average business computer use? What about the cluster size? Any tips for that from experience? I did search, but did not find this. I know that it's not as safe, but these drives are backed up every day and have nothing critical on them besides.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Use the highers it will alow you to use, 128k is best but might only have a 64k option. GINZE

[ashmedai]

The best - not to use RAID 0. You're unlikely to benefit from it much if at all, especially for "average business computer use" applications. Multimedia content creation, maybe, depending on alot of things.

Since you're probably going to do it anyway, do one of two things. 64k, or the NTFS default 4k. Pagefile for example always operates at 4k regardless of what the cluster size is, so anything above or below this will harm pagefile performance. Also NTFS compression will not work if the cluster size is above 4k.

Again, the best thing to do is to just NOT USE RAID 0.

[svasutin]

ashmedai has it right. RAID 0 for an OS and programs is not the best idea.

I have tested SCSI (u2w->u320), SATA, and ATA RAID and found there is little to no point in stripping the OS, program files, or most of My Documents/Pictures/Video.

RAID is useful for the swap file as instructed by ashmedai. RAID is useful for video rendering and capture work. If you're dealing with 5.1 audio or jpeg photos above 4 MB's, then it can help there also.

Placing MP3s and other audio on a RAID0 partition doesn't really help anything either; oh ahhh, I gained 0.1 seconds in opening up my first audio file.

You might save 1-20 seconds for something that takes 10 minutes. If you're transfering 5 GB of audio to a portable usb 1.1 device, RAID isn't going to make any difference.

RAID is useful when you are multi-tasking A LOT or dealing with lots and lots of hdd access.

Finally, forget about data recovery.

As for the original question of the cluster size. If you're dealing with audio, video, or picture as mentioned above, larger is better. If you're dealing with anything else, then just use 4k.

Oh ya, enabling compression on a RAID 0 defeats the point.

[ginze]

The best - not to use RAID 0. You're unlikely to benefit from it much if at all, especially for "average business computer use" applications. Multimedia content creation, maybe, depending on alot of things.

Since you're probably going to do it anyway, do one of two things. 64k, or the NTFS default 4k. Pagefile for example always operates at 4k regardless of what the cluster size is, so anything above or below this will harm pagefile performance. Also NTFS compression will not work if the cluster size is above 4k.

Again, the best thing to do is to just NOT USE RAID 0.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anything that accesses the hard drive to run and you have raid it will open and actually run 10 times better than a non raid array. GINZE