RAID 0 Stripe size

[NorthernYankee]

So whats the best size, I am gonna do 16 if no one replies before the card and drives get here.

--NY

[Neo]

16 or 32. I have had good luck with 32. I think 16 is faster.

[NorthernYankee]

Thanks for the info mike

--NY

[Player0]

I use 64. It has given me the best results.

[NorthernYankee]

one other quick question, I can't remember what the switches are for formatting an NTFS partion for say a 64K cluster size.

--NY

[mdzcpa]

NY:

XP will automatically format under NTFS with 4k clusters. There are a few ways to get around this:

1. With Partition Magic

2. By making a smaller partiton for the OS that you have to live with 4K. Prepare the other partitions at 16k (or 64) when you come up.

3. use another drive to install long enough to get the raid setup right, then remove it and reinstall.

4. Use fat32 with 16k (or 64) clusters for the boot drive and make a ntfs when you get up

5. Use the software raid and create it when you are up and boot off a non-raided drive.

The switch you need to use under the DOS window (assuming you have loaded XP on a temporary drive) is
FORMAT X: /A:64k /FS:NTFS.

But, although I have read it is best to have cluster and stripe size the same, I have not found there to be any significant performance gain for me one way or the other by changing the default cluster size of 4k under NTFS to match the stripe size.

BTW, I have found my best benches have come when running the 16K stripe using the default cluster of 4k. Seems to be best for smaller files typical of what is on my system (vs. very large files, such as video files, which appear to work best with the 64k stripe).

But, everyone's mileage seems to vary on this issue:)

[NorthernYankee]

Thanks for the info Mike, I ended up leaving it as the default 4k cluster size and set the stripe size for 32. I will do some benches after I get this set-up ghosted.

--NY